O Lord God, who art the light of the minds that know thee, the life of the souls that love thee, and the strength of the hearts that serve thee: Help us, following the example of thy servant Augustine of Hippo, so to know thee that we may truly love thee, and so to love thee that we may fully serve thee, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

O Thou who sittest on the throne, making all things new: Renew our faith, and hope, and love. Renew our wills, that we may serve thee more gladly and watchfully than ever; renew our delight in thy Word and thy worship; renew our joy in thee; renew our longing that all may know thee; renew our desires and labours to serve others; that so we may walk in the light of thy love and in the power of thy Spirit, now and for evermore.

Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.

–John 6:60-71

The last 12 months has seen a significant development in the Anglican Communion. National Anglican Churches (Provinces is the technical term) have begun to hold significant large gatherings of all Anglicans in their area along with international guests from other parts of the Communion.

This is part of the “celebration” level of church gatherings which can be classed as “cell” ”“ or home groups, “congregation” ”“ what most of us experience on Sundays and “celebration” ”“ everyone getting together in an area or region. Churches in Oxford have done this for the last seven years with “Love Oxford” when many churches shut their doors on one Sunday and all meet together in a central outdoor location. English dioceses have occasionally done this by taking over a football stadium. Gatherings such as Word Alive, Bible by the Beach, Spring Harvest, New Wine and Keswick are also such celebrations….

Read it all.

…look at the pseudo-Qur’an that has become such a mainstay of anti-Islamic activism. Internet activists regularly quote Qur’anic passages to characterize the whole Islamic faith as rooted in hatred, terror and violence, and specifically a brutal anti-Semitism. Far from being the incidental deviations of modern-day traitors to the faith, they suggest, such atrocities are entirely rooted in its most fundamental scripture, in words allegedly delivered by God himself.

The problem, though, is that the texts usually cited are spurious. Either they do not occur at all in the Qur’an, or else they are quoted in a sense radically different from their actual meaning. Just how these pseudo-texts came into being is mysterious. In some cases, activists might have invented them wholesale, while later readers pass them on in the sincere belief that they are authentic. Alternatively, perhaps genuine passages were perverted in the course of transmission. Whatever explanation we choose, there is no reason to suggest that individuals citing the alleged passages are conscious of any kind of deception: they are telling the truth as they understand it. Unintentionally, though, they are peddling harmful misinformation.

Read it all.

Since 1900, the life expectancy of Americans has jumped to just shy of 80 from 47 years. This surge comes mostly from improved hygiene and nutrition, but also from new discoveries and interventions: everything from antibiotics and heart bypass surgery to cancer drugs that target and neutralize the impact of specific genetic mutations.

Now scientists studying the intricacies of DNA and other molecular bio-dynamics may be poised to offer even more dramatic boosts to longevity. This comes not from setting out explicitly to conquer aging, which remains controversial in mainstream science, but from researchers developing new drugs and therapies for such maladies of growing old as heart disease and diabetes.

“Aging is the major risk factor for most diseases,” says Felipe Sierra, director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging. “The National Institutes of Health fund research into understanding the diseases of aging, not life extension, though this could be a side effect.”

Read it all.

Many people are Christians because of the work of C.S. Lewis. With wit and wisdom, Lewis imaginatively exploded the hollow pretensions of the secular. Moreover, he helped many see, for the first time, the world in the light of fact that “it had really happened once.”

It is, therefore, not easy to criticize Lewis when he has such a devoted following. Yet I must write critically of Lewis because here I want to examine his views concerning violence and war. I am a pacifist. Lewis was anything but a pacifist. I want to show that his arguments against pacifism are inadequate, but I also that he provides imaginative resources for Christians to imagine a very different form of Christian nonviolence, a form unknown to Lewis, with which I hope he might have had some sympathy.

Before turning to Lewis’s arguments against pacifism, I think it important to set the context for his more formal reflections on war by calling attention to Lewis’s experience of war.

Read it all.

A Marine is a best-practice warrior who models the highest levels of what military training can accomplish.

The Marines are by no means the only people who take such transformative experiences seriously. Colleges and seminaries talk a lot about this process, each claiming that it turns out world class leaders. There are businesses (Starbucks comes to mind) that believe that their profitability depends on turning employees into best-practice sales representatives.

How about churches and their goal of making of devoted followers of Jesus? What does the difference look like there?

Read it all.

Born and raised an Episcopalian, [Bruce] Baker, 71, became a married deacon in the Catholic Church in 1982. Following his first wife’s death in 1990, he was ordained a priest and served as executive director of an ecumenical retreat center in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

In 2006, he requested a leave of absence from his religious community and moved to Reading to study hospital chaplaincy at Reading Hospital and Medical Center. In 2007, he returned to the Episcopal Church and was married. Bishop Paul V. Marshall of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem received him as a priest of the Episcopal Church in 2008.

Read it all.

Even at a glance, anyone could see that the unlimited and easy availability of contraceptives in Africa would surely increase infidelity and sexual promiscuity, as sex is presented by this multi-billion dollar project as a casual pleasure sport that can indeed come with no strings ”“ or babies ”“ attached. Think of the exponential spread of HIV and other STDs as men and women with abundant access to contraceptives take up multiple, concurrent sex partners.

And of course there are bound to be inconsistencies and failures in the use of these drugs and devices, so health complications could result; one of which is unintended abortion. Add also other health risks such as cancer, blood clots, etc. Where Europe and America have their well-oiled health care system, a woman in Africa with a contraception-induced blood clot does not have access to 911 or an ambulance or a paramedic. No, she dies.

Read it all.

The conservative movement loves an innocent. Better yet if he has attended an Ivy League college and witnessed the debauchery of the elites firsthand. For this particular position, Nathan Harden, the author of “Sex and God at Yale,” possesses impeccable credentials. He was home-schooled, was already married when he got to college and had worshiped the institution so blindly that he was bound to be disappointed.

Like many home-schoolers, Harden is a true American eccentric. He quit before he finished high school, got a G.E.D. and spent his interim years drifting: loading cow manure for the gardening department at Walmart, working as a baggage handler for United and as a lounge singer in Florida, and volunteering with a medical relief charity. Somewhere in there he found his true love and, almost on a whim, married. Harden’s accounts of his itinerant travels are in some ways the most entertaining parts of the book, although he takes pains to avoid seeming too world-weary so that when he arrives on campus he can be truly, deeply shocked.

Read it all noting the content may not be suitable for all blog readers.

The Saylor Foundation has nearly finished creating a full suite of free, online courses in a dozen popular undergraduate majors. And the foundation is now offering a path to college credit for its offerings by partnering with two nontraditional players in higher education ”“ Excelsior College and StraighterLine.

The project started three years ago, when the foundation began hiring faculty members on a contract basis to build courses within their subject areas. The professors scoured the web for free Open Education Resources (OER), but also created video lectures and tests.

“I was able to develop my own material,” said Kevin Moquin, who created a business law course for Saylor. A former adjunct professor for a technical college and a for-profit institution, Moquin said the foundation gave him the “flexibility to adjust it as I needed.”

Read it all.

Ok, take a look at this.

That is but one photo of 9000 women from around greater Charleston and beyond at the North Charleston Coliseum this past weekend who came to hear Bible teacher Beth Moore.

Now explain something to me. How is this not a major story? Would you not want, say, to interview Beth Moore? To talk to some of the participants (who came from every Christian tradition imaginable)? To find out why people came and stood in line for hours just to get inside? To ask them what they learned? To talk to the (quite talented and influential) music team? To find out why the wife of a local Episcopal Church minister (yes, you read that correctly) was the local area coordinator for the event? My questions could go and on.

Instead we get three perfunctory announcements and that is all, like this–on August 18th. Not one story, no features, no interviews, no local angles–and all this in a city where faith is a major part of common life.

Anyone else think this is outrageous and sad? I do–KSH.

One of the latest contributions to the debate over the pros and cons of the Internet and social networking sites is the book “Networked: The New Social Operation System.”
Authors Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman are respectively the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, and a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.
Many people are concerned about the effects of the Internet on society, the authors acknowledged. In their opinion, however, it does not have an isolating effect. People are interacting with others, by using these new technologies.

Read it all.

We are facing a true moral inversion ”” a system of moral understandings turned upside down. Where homosexuality was even recently condemned by the society, now it is considered a sin to believe that homosexuality is wrong in any way. A new sexual morality has replaced the old, and those who hold to the old morality are considered morally deficient. The new moral authorities have one central demand for the church: get with the new program.

This puts the true church, committed to the authority of God’s Word, in a very difficult cultural position. Put simply, we cannot join the larger culture in normalizing homosexuality and restructuring society to match this new morality. Recognizing same-sex unions and legalizing same-sex marriage is central to this project.

Liberal churches and denominations are joining the project, some more quickly and eagerly than others. The cultural pressure is formidable, and only churches that are truly committed to Scripture will withstand the pressure to accommodate themselves and their message to the new morality.

Read it all.

Read it all.

You may find the general link here; then you can choose to play them sermon audio directly there but note there is also a download option available.

O loving God, who willest that everyone should come to thee and be saved: We bless thy Holy Name for thy servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today; and we pray that thou wouldst continually move thy Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who opened the ears of the deaf, and who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end.

–John Donne (1572-1631)

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. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

–Psalm 1

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan, where an estimated 150,000 Syrians — 39,600 of which are registered with the United Nations as refugees — have fled. As the conflict in Syria continues to worsen, some Syrians have also fled to Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.

The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and president of The Lutheran World Federation, has been in conversation with Jordanian officials about how Lutherans can best be involved in addressing the needs of Syrian refugees. He is helping to identify ways in which his church, the ELCA and The Lutheran World Federation can deepen their participation in relief efforts.

Read it all.

There is bad news for boys in North America: They are being blown out of the water by girls in academic achievement; and psychologists say young men are becoming more socially awkward, making relationships with young women difficult.

Sidney Gale, a medical doctor and author of Unto the Breach, an outdoor adventures book for boys, is concerned…”We need to get boys out of their solitary bedrooms and into the sun,” Gale says. “It’s also a good idea to get them reading something other than tweets, texts and the like. They have intellect, and we should encourage them to use it.”

Read it all.

Midway down a narrow second floor hallway at the Winship Cancer Institute, away from the hum of nurses ushering cancer patients into exam rooms, Dr. William Wood talks about the great need far beyond these walls and how his boyhood faith gave him a heart big enough to care.

It began, he said, as he listened to the medical missionaries who visited the church in which he grew up in suburban Chicago. He soaked up their every word, allowing them to transport him to that time when Jesus sent his disciples out to do what he did: preach the gospel and heal the sick.

At 72, the retired Emory surgeon, a mild-mannered doctor known for his contributions to cancer therapy, is still fulfilling that mission as he crisscrosses the globe lecturing about surgical oncology and teaching young doctors how to care for breast cancer patients in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read it all.

What’s the fiercest rivalry in American politics today? There’s Obama-Romney, of course, but try O’Malley-McDonnell””neighboring governors battling across the Potomac River over how best to resuscitate a moribund economy.

Martin O’Malley, Maryland’s liberal Democratic governor, is competing for jobs, businesses and tax dollars with Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s conservative Republican chief executive. Both are rising stars considered potential presidential hopefuls in 2016. Both are Irish Catholics””Mr. McDonnell playfully calls Mr. O’Malley “the big Irishman to our north”””and each leads his party’s association of governors. The two regularly spar on the Sunday talk shows, on the pages of Washington-area newspapers, and over the radio.

Each man seems obsessed with proving that his economic model has outperformed the other’s….

Read it all.

Christian Berntsen is nothing if not enthusiastic. An activist with Bunt statt Braun, a group dedicated to combating right-wing extremism in the northern German city of Rostock, Berntsen has been instrumental in helping plan and stage events dedicated to commemorating the xenophobic, 1992 assault on an asylum-seekers home in the city quarter of Lichtenhagen. The list of activities is long: films, podium discussions, international cooking courses in local schools and presentations by local and regional politicians of all stripes.

“The city is working hand-in-hand with us when it comes to the remembrance program,” Berntsen says ardently. “And the events have been extremely well received and well attended.”
The effort in Rostock is indeed impressive. The city has gone out of its way to ensure that the kind of hateful violence that flared up two decades ago does not make a reappearance. But elsewhere in Germany, particularly in the east, the situation offers decidedly less cause for optimism. There are, to be sure, myriad groups pursuing goals similar to Bunt statt Braun, but entire regions remain where foreigners are afraid to venture, towns dominated by neo-Nazi thugs and repeated attacks against those who look different. Twenty years after the despicable Rostock violence, Germany’s xenophobia problem remains daunting.

Read it all.

“If you phone a Unitarian Church between the middle of June and Labor Day in September, the most you are apt to get is a recorded message,” Charles S. Slap said in his sermon at the First Unitarian Society of Schenectady, N.Y., on Sept. 8, 1985. “Our more orthodox friends never cease to be astounded by the contents of the message: ”˜This church is closed for the summer. If you are one of those people who actually need a church during the summer, try the Presbyterians.’ ”

Was he joking? Well, in part ”” Mr. Slap surely did not wish Presbyterianism on potential followers. But in the matter of his own church being closed for the summer, he was serious. “Indeed,” he added, “85 percent of Unitarian societies go into their strange ecclesiastical hibernation” in the summer months.

Read it all.

Read it all.

The way food prices are these days, Sheanna Caban and her family have had to adjust to a life of meatless Mondays and a whole lot of pasta on the dinner menu.

The 32-year-old mother of two and her husband work behind the scenes at local television stations. But even with two incomes, they struggle to keep pace with the ever-rising cost of living and raising a family.

With staples like milk going for $3.50 or more per gallon, just putting food on the table leaves a big dent in the budget of middle-class families like the Cabans.

“It’s a big concern,” she said. “Our grocery bills are second on the list of expenses, right after rent.”

Read it all from the local paper.

To find satisfaction and meaning in our vocational callings we must begin to understand the importance of the Cultural Mandate. It is the only way to see our work in a truly Biblical framework.

Through the lens of the Cultural Mandate we will finally see our work as “the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.” (Dorothy Sayers, Unpopular Opinions)

Read it all (seven parts).

I had met him. Met him at an embassy in Washington, DC, where despite the fact he was guest of honor there seemed much more interest in the cocktails than in shaking his hand. So I shook it. And we talked. About the moon, about the occasion, and about C-PET. And our shared birthday. A man as modest as Steve Jobs, that other defining figure of our technological age, was self-absorbed. A man whose anguish as 43 years were spent by this allegedly visionary nation in failing to build on what he had signally achieved was kept almost entirely quiet (the Obama administration’s space strategy emerging in 2010 finally drew him and his fellow astronauts into polite regret). The first earth-man to set foot on another body in space; who for all we know was the first sentient being ever to do that in the vast expanses of the cosmos…

Andrew Keen’s brilliant and non-naive critique of naive digital culture has forcibly reminded us of the flawed genius of utilitarianism. If what truly matters is for us to be happy, if the summum bonum of Homo sapiens lies not in the beatific vision and the cultural mandate (and if, dear secular thinker, you don’t know what they mean, o boy, you should), or even a post-theistic re-statement of them both, but in a mirror and a merely social network, then who can challenge the Lotos-eaters or their chip-popping couch potato cognates, for whom the good life is merely the life at ease?…

This modest engineer became a Right Stuff pilot and the first walker on another world. 43 long years later we are ambling back into the game. There’s time to make up.

Read it all and do follow all the links.