Daily Archives: February 18, 2012

Web TV's New Lineup–Hollywood players are lining up to create original online shows

Hollywood veteran Brian Robbins has a new production studio under construction and 35 shows in development. There’s a sitcom set in a high-school bathroom, a talk show modeled on “The View” but hosted by young Twitter celebrities and a series about an outlandish teen wrestling league.

Mr. Robbins, a producer and director known for Eddie Murphy movies and TV shows including “Smallville,” plans to produce 120 hours of teen programming this year, all of it destined exclusively for the Web. “We consider ourselves a network,” he says.

Mr. Robbins is part of a teeming new ecosystem, as some of Hollywood’s biggest names””with support from Silicon Valley’s deepest pockets””are racing to create new shows, and in some cases, dozens of them, for the Web.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Blogging & the Internet, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Movies & Television, Science & Technology

An Article about a New Rwanda Affiliated Anglican Church in Tuscaloose, Alabama

In mid-December, a small group of people brought the practice of an “ancient faith” to the Battle-Friedman House on Greensboro Avenue.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church is not the first Anglican church in Tuscaloosa’s history, but it’s the only one currently active.

“We’re brand new, and we want to let people know we’re here and have a sense what we’re all about,” said the Rev. Lanier Nail, pastor of St. Paul’s.

Read it all. Also, the Church website is there.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, * Culture-Watch, * International News & Commentary, * Religion News & Commentary, America/U.S.A., Anglican Provinces, Church of Rwanda, Other Churches, Parish Ministry, Religion & Culture

TEC Pittsburgh Has a Petition Nomination in the Bishop Election Process–Lionel Diemel is Concerned

First please go here and reread the necessary procedures for a petition nomination. Observe especially the following:

“A petition should come after a prayerful discernment about the preliminary slate and as a way to strengthen the slate,” advises Dean [George] Werner.

A nomination by petition requires ten signatures from individuals representing at least three parishes. Four of those signing must be canonically resident clergy, and of the six lay communicants in good standing in parishes of the diocese, three must be deputies to the Diocesan Convention. The petition must also include the consent signature of the person being nominated.

Now see what you make of Lionel Diemel’s take on this matter.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, Episcopal Church (TEC), Ministry of the Laity, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Pastoral Theology, TEC Bishops, TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils, Theology

An Upcoming Conference at Nashotah House in April on Justification in Anglican Life and Thought

The Three Main lectures are on the following topics:

“Justification and the Future of Anglicanism”

“Luther and the English Reformation”

“Justification from Hooker to Newman”

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, Church History, Episcopal Church (TEC), Seminary / Theological Education, TEC Bishops, Theology, Theology: Salvation (Soteriology)

Rob Eaton's Sermon for World Mission Sunday

Right mission depends on power, and that power comes from the Holy Spirit.

At the Transfiguration they saw it. And they lived with it, in Jesus. And that power would be proclaimed, and lived. The mission of the church, from beginning to end, when done the way God wants it done, is accomplished through the power of God.

Lord God, empower our missionaries in the Holy Spirit as they go, and as they point to and proclaim Jesus. May each of us be open to the invitation to go ourselves. We pray that all of us may be empowered and living in the Holy Spirit that we will all live the mission no matter where we are, to the Glory of God and the building up of Your Kingdom. Amen.

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, Episcopal Church (TEC), Ministry of the Ordained, Missions, Parish Ministry, Preaching / Homiletics, TEC Parishes, Theology, Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)

For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage

It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Children, Ethics / Moral Theology, Health & Medicine, Marriage & Family, Science & Technology, Theology, Women

David Brooks–The Jeremy Lin Problem–His Faith

Jeremy Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Harvard grad in the N.B.A., an Asian-American man in professional sports. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly. He’s a religious person in professional sports….

The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. (Let’s say he’s a man, though these traits apply to female athletes as well). He is theatrical. He puts himself on display….

…[Yet] there’s no use denying ”” though many do deny it ”” that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Religion & Culture, Sports

(WSJ) The [Federal Express] Delivery Guy Who Saw Jeremy Lin Coming

In May 2010, an unsung numbers hobbyist named Ed Weiland wrote a long-term forecast of Jeremy Lin for the basketball website Hoops Analyst. At the time, Lin was a lightly regarded, semi-known point guard who had completed his final season at Harvard. But Weiland saw NBA material. He emphasized how well Lin played in three nonconference games against big schools: Connecticut, Boston College and Georgetown. He noted how Lin’s performance in two unsexy statistical categories””two-point field-goal percentage (a barometer of inside scoring ability) and RSB40 (rebounds, steals and blocks per 40 minutes) compared favorably with college numbers put up by marquee NBA guards like Allen Iverson and Gary Payton. Weiland concluded that Lin had to improve on his passing and leadership at the point, but argued that if he did, “Jeremy Lin is a good enough player to start in the NBA and possibly star.

“In the wake of Lin’s historic New York explosion, Weiland’s eerily prescient post has quickly recirculated around the Internet, as a rare example of someone who saw potential in a player who wasn’t drafted and was abandoned by two teams before getting a chance with the Knicks. Traffic rushing to Weiland’s 2010 Lin piece briefly crashed the Hoops Analyst website after Lin torched the Lakers for 38 points Friday, and his wisdom has been compared with the groundbreaking number-crunching in the baseball best seller “Moneyball,” which became a recent Hollywood movie. A tribute to Weiland’s foresight on Yahoo’s The Post Game ended with, “Brad Pitt’s on line 1.”

Read it all (and don’t miss the picture).

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Men, Sports

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Martin Luther

O God, our refuge and our strength, who didst raise up thy servant Martin Luther to reform and renew thy Church in the light of thy word: Defend and purify the Church in our own day and grant that, through faith, we may boldly proclaim the riches of thy grace, which thou hast made known in Jesus Christ our Savior, who, with thee and the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.

Posted in * Christian Life / Church Life, Church History, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer to Begin the Day

O God, who art Spirit, and wiliest to be worshipped in spirit and in truth: Grant to us that, loving thee in all things and above all things, we may please thee by our prayers and by our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in * Christian Life / Church Life, Spirituality/Prayer

From the Morning Bible Readings

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.

–1 John 3:16-18

Posted in Theology, Theology: Scripture

(BP) A first-century fragment of The Gospel of Mark found?

Much of the biblical scholarly world has been buzzing since Feb. 1, when a New Testament professor made a claim during a debate that was news to most everyone who heard it — a first-century fragment of Mark’s Gospel may have been found.

It would be the earliest-known fragment of the New Testament, placing it in the very century of Christ and the apostles.

The claim by Dallas Theological Seminary’s Daniel B. Wallace took place during a debate with University of North Carolina professor Bart Ehrman, an author whose popular books claim the New Testament cannot be trusted because the original manuscripts aren’t in existence.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, History, Religion & Culture, Theology, Theology: Scripture