Films about being adrift seem to suit the national mood: “All Is Lost” is one of a spate of movies this season, including “Gravity,” about Americans unmoored.

–From a profile article on Robert Redford in this week’s New York Times

David Mukuba Gitari, first Bishop of the Diocese of Mount Kenya East (1975-1997) and Archbishop of Kenya (1997-2002), died in hospital in Nairobi on 30 September, 2013 aged 76. David Gitari was one of the first post-colonial global African Christian leaders. He was born to Samuel and Jesse Mukuba in 1937. Samuel was the first person to evangelise the area where his fifth child would be bishop decades later. David as a child was too small to be allowed to enrol at school at the age of 6. He was also sent home from teachers training college at the age of 17 because he could not reach the blackboard. He was a leader in the Kenya Students Christian Fellowship and, encouraged by the late Oliver Barclay, trained in theology through IFES at Tyndale Hall, Bristol, in 1965. He became a travelling secretary for the Pan African Fellowship of Evangelical Students in East and Central Africa. In 1971 he became General Secretary of the Bible Society of Kenya. He came to prominence in Kenya in 1975 when he gave a series of six Bible expositions on the State-run Voice of Kenya radio in the five-minute “Lift up your hearts” slot before the 7am news. A leading member of Parliament, JM Kariuki had been found murdered in a thicket in the Ngong Hills. Gitari expounded Genesis 4 on Cain’s murder of Abel.

He was ”˜carpeted’ by VoK and told his sermons had been disturbing. Gitari replied that the gospel of Jesus Christ is very disturbing, especially to sinners. Biblical Exposition Biblical exposition set the pattern for his preaching, proclaiming orthodox Christian faith to the whole of society and the powers that be.

Read it all from the Church of England Newspaper.

One result has been the visible expression of a truly global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans ”“ the name is significant, as it sets the heart of our unity in what we confess, what we believe about God, Christ, salvation and the Christian life, not in forms of worship, or administration based on geography. Its worth remembering that Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan are not being targeted because of the architecture of their churches or the style of liturgy, but because they testify counter-culturally that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour. We must also recognize that the majority of Anglicans worldwide to be found in Africa, where most Anglicans live in poverty compared to us, but have learned to trust daily in God for their daily bread, who share their faith as evangelical Christians with their neighbours, and who care for the poor and oppressed around them. Through the global FCA and the GAFCON conferences the voices of these ordinary Anglicans, particularly women, can now be heard.

So GAFCON 2 in Nairobi is nearly upon us. It starts on 21st October and runs for 5 days. More than 100 delegates will be coming from the UK and Ireland, to join over 1000 others meeting in All Saints Cathedral for daily worship, inspiring messages and seminars wrestling with missional challenges in cross-cultural groups. Nairobi is of course in the spotlight as recent terrifying events have highlighted the problem of Islamic extremism, and the presence of the Westgate shopping centre and the Kibera slum in the same city are a reminder of the challenge of economic inequality. But the Church of Kenya is rooted in the East Africa Revival of the 1930’s, where hundreds of thousands turned to Christ and tribal divisions were healed. These divisions resurface of course, but more recently the Anglican Church was at the forefront of the peaceful settlement after post election violence of a few years ago. In Kenya we will be reminded that the world is dangerous, the challenges are huge, but God loves the world and its people, and the testimonies of Christians prove it . He has provided the way of salvation through his Son, and he has established his church as a supernatural gathering across racial barriers (Ephesians 2:14-16) through the Gospel (3:6), and as a means of displaying his wisdom to the hostile powers against whom we struggle (6:12), and who one day will be subdued in the new creation (1:10).

So the focus at GAFCON 2 will be on world mission….

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Exactly one month after the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi (News, 27 September), 1200 people are expected to gather in the city to attend GAFCON II.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will preach at a eucharist at All Saints’ Cathedral in the Kenyan capital, the day before the conference opens there. He will not attend the conference, owing to “long-standing commitments”, a statement from Lambeth Palace said, but will record a video greeting.

The Archbishop will be the guest of the Primate of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala, who chairs the GAFCON Primates Council, from 19 to 20 October. The “flying visit” to Nairobi was “to be in close solidarity following the recent terrorist attack”.

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Holy God, no one is excluded from thy love; and thy truth transformeth the minds of all who seek thee: As thy servant Philip was led to embrace the fullness of thy salvation and to bring the stranger to Baptism, so grant unto us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel, proclaiming thy love in Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

O God, the Father of lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift: We beseech thee to grant us such health of body as thou knowest to be needful for us; that both in our bodies and our souls we may evermore serve thee with all our strength and might; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–John Cosin (1594-1672)

Jehoi”²achin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehush”²ta the daughter of Elna”²than of Jerusalem. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.At that time the servants of Nebuchadnez”²zar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnez”²zar king of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it; and Jehoi”²achin the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign, and carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made, as the Lord had foretold. He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained, except the poorest people of the land. And he carried away Jehoi”²achin to Babylon; the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the chief men of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths, one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war. And the king of Babylon made Mattani”²ah, Jehoi”²achin’s uncle, king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedeki”²ah.

–2 Kings 24:8-17

The Archbishop of Canterbury called for Christians in deep disagreement to choose ”˜to be gracious’.

Archbishop Justin was addressing Churches Together in England’s Annual National Church Leaders Meeting at Lambeth Palace on Monday evening, where he spoke on ”˜graciousness and respect in disagreement’.

Acknowledging the ”˜reality’ of divisions between Christians, Archbishop Justin said that ”˜genuine reconciliation’ was not ”˜agreement’ but ”˜learning to love one another in deep disagreement. . . The miracle of the church is not that we agree and love one another; it’s that we disagree and, despite that, we love one another.’

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Kenyan Archbishop David Gitari was one of the most influential and theologically astute Bishops in the Anglican Communion. His sermons, expounding the Scriptures, combined challenges to personal conversion with prophetic denunciations of local and national injustices.

He held a high doctrine of the authority and power of God’s Word in the Bible and applied it with shrewd and brave political acumen, reading the signs of the times and warning about hinges of history. In 1988 his courageous sermons led the national critique of replacing the secret ballot with voting by queuing up behind photos of candidates. He survived an assassination attempt on his life in April 1989.

At the 1988 Lambeth Conference, he chaired the resolutions committee and gave a paper on Evangelization and Culture; just before the 1998 Lambeth Conference, he received an honorary DD from the University of Kent and the opening Eucharist of the conference was the Kenyan Service of Holy Communion, which he inspired and shaped as the innovative chair of the Liturgical Commission.

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Most of interest to me–“Troubled But Not Destroyed’ the title of the late Dr. David Gitari’s un-released autobiography.”

Check them out.

Do ministers of congregations need to go to seminary?

Not that long ago, historically speaking, this was a perfectly fair question. Today, it’s becoming a point of debate again….

What is changing is a movement in two directions with a single, general effect. On the one hand, nondenominational churches are springing up, with many of the larger, or “megachurch,” institutions having no affiliation with a denominational certification body. Therefore they have no specific requirement for a bachelor’s degree or Bible college certificate of one sort or another. Each non- or undenominational congregation can hire whom it chooses, and even ordain or not ordain as seems right and proper for its history and sense of tradition.

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The statewide Catholic Diocese of Charleston broke ground Thursday on a three-building campus in West Ashley that will become the new center of its administrative and pastoral work.

The $17.5 million center at a quiet end of Orange Grove Road will include a 175-seat chapel, a three-story office building and a high-tech conference center. The conference center will include teleconferencing abilities and be able to accommodate nearly 200 people for meetings and retreats.

The Pastoral Center is scheduled to open around Christmas 2014.

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Jorge Fuentes did things his own way. “If you’re not being yourself, you’re not having fun,” he would say, flashing a smile.

As a contrarian kid, he sometimes drove his mother and teachers and pastors crazy. But by his late teens, he was a standout counselor at his church’s youth programs. He traveled everywhere on mission trips, doing farm work in Virginia, feeding poor people in New York. He planned to join the Marines.

Then, just over a year ago, came the stray shot, fired from a stranger’s gun, that hit the 19-year-old in the head as he walked his dog across the street from his family’s home in Dorchester.

The death of Fuentes was a loss of incalculable proportions, not only for his close-knit family, but for Episcopalians across Eastern Massachusetts.

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The newly constructed St. Jude’s Anglican Cathedral in Iqaluit, Nunavut, may close its doors unless funds are raised to pay the balance of its construction debt, according to the diocese of the Arctic.

The diocese has paid more than $7.5 million toward the cost of constructing the cathedral, but still owes the construction giant, Dowland Contracting Ltd., about $3 million.

The diocese had been paying this debt as funds were raised, based on an “informal arrangement worked out directly with the [company],” said its diocesan bishop, David Parsons. However, in May, Dowland Contracting Ltd. was put into receivership; it filed for bankruptcy protection in July.

The receiver, Alvaraz and Marsal Canada, Inc., is now asking the diocese for immediate payment of the $3 million debt, plus $30,000 per month in interest.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged the Egyptian Government to do more to prevent mob attacks on the country’s Coptic Christian minority.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said the circumstances for Egypt’s Christian minority, which makes up about about 10 per cent of the nation’s population, were “life-threatening”.

More than 200 Christian-owned properties have been attacked and 43 churches seriously damaged across the country, according to an Amnesty International report out…[this week].

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….the Federal Disability Insurance Program…serves nearly 12 million people — up 20 percent in the last six years — and has a budget of $135 billion. That’s more than the government spent last year on the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the Labor Department combined. It’s been called a “secret welfare system” with it’s own “disability industrial complex,” a system ravaged by waste and fraud. A lot of people want to know what’s going on. Especially Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Tom Coburn: Go read the statute. If there’s any job in the economy you can perform, you are not eligible for disability. That’s pretty clear. So, where’d all those disabled people come from?

The Social Security Administration, which runs the disability program says the explosive surge is due to aging baby boomers and the lingering effects of a bad economy. But Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations — who’s also a physician — says it’s more complicated than that. Last year, his staff randomly selected hundreds of disability files and found that 25 percent of them should never have been approved — another 20 percent, he said, were highly questionable.

Read it all or better still watch the video.

The National Geographic Channel followed two snake-handling preachers off and on for a year for a called Snake Salvation that will air this fall on Tuesday nights. Pastor Jamie Coots is one of the series’ subjects.

“Snake handling fascinated me because it’s such an extreme gesture of faith,” says Matthew Testa, the series’ executive producer. “We set out to tell this story from the snake handlers’ point of view, to really humanize them, not to judge them, and to show how important religion is in their daily lives with their daily struggles.”

The Tabernacle Church of God in LaFollette, Tenn., is a short drive through the Cumberland Gap from Coots’ church. The pastor here is Andrew Hamblin, a lanky, charismatic 22-year-old, who is the other preacher featured in the TV series. Hamblin wants to modernize the practice of handling snakes in church. He posts photos of himself with snakes on , and he aspires to pastor the first serpent-handling megachurch.

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Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, according to Gallup’s new 142-country study on the State of the Global Workplace. In other words, about one in eight workers — roughly 180 million employees in the countries studied — are psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organizations.

The bulk of employees worldwide — 63% — are “not engaged,” meaning they lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organizational goals or outcomes. And 24% are “actively disengaged,” indicating they are unhappy and unproductive at work and liable to spread negativity to coworkers. In rough numbers, this translates into 900 million not engaged and 340 million actively disengaged workers around the globe.

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The discovery of the first chemical to prevent the death of brain tissue in a neurodegenerative disease has been hailed as the “turning point” in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

More work is needed to develop a drug that could be taken by patients.

But scientists say a resulting medicine could treat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and other diseases.

In tests on mice, the Medical Research Council showed all brain cell death from prion disease could be prevented.

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In 1995, Mark Noll opened his The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind with an unflattering observation: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”

Now, almost two decades later, has anything changed? In a new roundtable video, three Christian higher education presidents””Michael Lindsay, Albert Mohler, and Philip Ryken””consider evidences of a recovered and maturing evangelical mind in the years since Noll’s landmark work.

“We’re no longer trying to prove ourselves, trying to get a seat at the table,” observes Lindsay, president of Gordon College in Massachusetts. “I think evangelicals have demonstrated they can do the highest level of scholarship in fields like history, philosophy, and sociology.”

Read it all and watch the video also.

Blot out, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord, our past transgressions; forgive our negligence and ignorance, our mistakes and misunderstandings; and uplift our hearts to thee in new love and dedication; that unburdened from the grief and shame of past faithlessness, we may henceforth serve thee with renewed courage and devotion; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

A proposal from Sen. Susan Collins is emerging as one potential way to dig lawmakers out of a government shutdown and possibly also avoid a potentially catastrophic debt default.

The moderate Maine Republican, whose vote will be essential to any fiscal deal, is circulating a rough plan to reopen the government, repeal the medical device tax and provide agencies with greater flexibility in implementing the sequester. The initial reception has been positive and may be the beginnings of a bipartisan solution to end the intractable impasse between House Republicans and Senate Democrats.

Collins said Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who are also being watched as potential GOP votes to end the fiscal standoff, have signed onto the proposal. And Collins said she has spoken to “several Democrats” about her plan, which she hopes “at least provides concepts that could be the basis for us reopening government.”

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As the government shutdown enters its second week, some religious groups are starting to feel the pinch, and they’re also finding ways to reach out.

More than 90 Catholic, evangelical and Protestant leaders have signed a statement rebuking “pro-life” lawmakers for the shutdown, saying they are “appalled that elected officials are pursuing an extreme ideological agenda at the expense of the working poor and vulnerable families” who won’t receive government benefits.

Starting Wednesday, evangelical, Catholic and mainline Protestant leaders will hold a daily “Faithful Filibuster” on Capitol Hill with Bible verses on the poor “to remind Congress that its dysfunction hurts struggling families and low-income people.”

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The United States is a great place. From New York to Los Angeles and covering everything in between, the U.S. boasts unprecedented diversity, natural wonder and opportunity. Americans love freedom so much, they have hot dog-eating contests on Independence Day to prove it. And good luck finding something better than a cronut.

Despite that general awesomeness, though, the U.S. isn’t the best at everything. That’s not dinging the land of the free and the home of the brave for no reason, but rather, to say that Europe just does some things better.

Here are a few arenas where the U.S. could learn a thing or two from the old country.

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The 2012 office and working costs of bishops in the Church of England are published today. Figures for individual bishops were first published, for the year 2000, in December 2001.

The costs of their offices and the work of the bishops for 2012 was £20.0 million compared to a cost of £19.5 million in 2011, an annual increase of 2.5%.

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Mary MacGregor, who heads the diocese’s Iona School, said programs like theirs and the Bishop Kemper School are what the church needs. She noted that in the Diocese of Wyoming, one of the Iona partners, 90 percent of their priests are bivocational. And the need for local education programs will only grow, she said.

“This is the movement that is going on in the church. There will be more internal schools in the Episcopal Church,” she said. And while quality content is essential, it isn’t the only requirement, she said. “We have to have a mix of quality, accessibility and do-ability.”

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The Archbishops says he will now carefully consider his position….if you take the first part of the resolution – it says the diocese ‘recognises diversity within the diocese of Perth, both in our sexual identities and our theologies of human sexuality’.

“What I said last time is that I thought that this was theologically flawed. I am speaking to you as a human person made in the image of God. I don’t see you or engage with you on the basis of your sexual identity.

“The other big issue for me, with the royal commission [into child abuse] clearly attentive to how we use language and words, what this resolution says is that I must formally accept people with an open ended recognition of diverse theologies on sexual identity.

“I think we have to be very careful there….”

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there are 15 slides in all–check them out (and note there is an autoplay slideshow option).