Now when the Lord was about to take Eli”²jah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Eli”²jah and Eli”²sha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 And Eli”²jah said to Eli”²sha, “Tarry here, I pray you; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Eli”²sha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Eli”²sha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; hold your peace.”

Eli”²jah said to him, “Eli”²sha, tarry here, I pray you; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Eli”²sha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; hold your peace.”
Then Eli”²jah said to him, “Tarry here, I pray you; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Eli”²jah took his mantle, and rolled it up, and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Eli”²jah said to Eli”²sha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Eli”²sha said, “I pray you, let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Eli”²jah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Eli”²sha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.

Then he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. And he took up the mantle of Eli”²jah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Eli”²jah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Eli”²jah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other; and Eli”²sha went over.

Now when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him over against them, they said, “The spirit of Eli”²jah rests on Eli”²sha.” And they came to meet him, and bowed to the ground before him. And they said to him, “Behold now, there are with your servants fifty strong men; pray, let them go, and seek your master; it may be that the Spirit of the Lord has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send.” But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, “Send.” They sent therefore fifty men; and for three days they sought him but did not find him. And they came back to him, while he tarried at Jericho, and he said to them, “Did I not say to you, Do not go?”

–2 Kings 2:1-18

You may remember a little over a week ago on BreakPoint, John Stonestreet gave you his reaction to an outrageous ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court; a ruling that John said, “eviscerates” religious freedom.

Now “eviscerates” is a strong word. Unfortunately, John was 100 percent right to use it….

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Today’s good-guy award goes to Joey Prusak of Hopkins, Minn.

Prusak, a Dairy Queen manager, back on Sept. 10 saw a woman pick up a $20 bill that a blind customer dropped. When Prusak told her to give it back, she refused. So, the 19-year-old manager refused to serve her. He then took $20 of his own money and gave it to the visually impaired customer.

Prusak’s good deed might have gone unnoticed. But, as KARE-TV reports “Other customers saw what happened….

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Dennis Hummer, now 45, met Nancy Hess, now 53, working at a church camp in 1988. Over 18 years of marriage, they learned they wanted to spend their time differently from each other. They divorced after Ms. Hess fell for another man. The couple did not have children, but now Mr. Hummer, who remarried and is now stepfather to two girls, find he loves being a “bonus” dad….

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A report was provided to HOB from the Ecclesiology Committee. Following table discussion, a panel answered questions from HOB ”“ Bishop John Buchanan of Chicago; Bishop Bill Franklin of Western New York; Bishop Bill Gregg of North Carolina; Bishop Pierre Whalon of Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe; and the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, President of the House of Deputies. The House discussed the importance of the founding of the church and its past as primer for the conversation about the future of the church.

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This past August, while contemplating the beauties of the Ottawa River from the deck of my family’s cottage on Allumette Island, Father Raymond de Souza, the Canadian commentator and a former-student-become-friend-and-colleague, offered an interesting take on World Youth Day 2016, which will be held in Cracow. When you think about it, he said, “the 20th century happened in Cracow.”

I think I know what Father de Souza meant. Cracow and its people suffered terribly under both Nazi and communist occupation; the murders at Auschwitz took place a few dozen kilometers away; the city-without-God, Nowa Huta, was built outside Cracow, as payback for the city’s failure to vote correctly in a bogus communist election. Yet the bad news was not all the news there was, in Cracow. For in this same city, the divine answer to the unprecedented human wickedness of the 20th century was given, in the visions of the divine mercy that seized the religious imagination of an obscure Polish nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska. And it was from Cracow that there came a man who brought Sister Faustina’s message of divine mercy to the world.

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Robert Ingersoll and his partner, Curt Freed, were longtime customers of Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Richland, Wash. After voters in the state approved same-sex marriage in December 2012, Messrs. Ingersoll and Freed decided to tie the knot, and called their florist. “There was never a question she’d be the one to do our flowers,” Mr. Ingersoll told the Tri-City Herald. But Ms. Stutzman declined, citing her Christian beliefs about marriage.

“You have to make a stand somewhere in your life on what you believe and what you don’t believe,” Ms. Stutzman told Christian Broadcasting Network. For acting on her religious beliefs, Ms. Stutzman has been sued twice: once by state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and once by the American Civil Liberties Union.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Voters were assured that legalizing gay marriage wouldn’t undermine religious freedom””after all, the public was assured that religious institutions would be free to act as they always had. But what about religious individuals? The effects of this new legal regime on private citizens have largely been ignored.

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We have now entered a brave new world, where a pregnancy can be terminated simply because the foetus does not meet an arbitrary set of criteria drawn up by the mother – or the wider family.

This moral revolution has been driven by two forces. One is the invention of ever-more sophisticated scanning techniques and other tests, which allow a comprehensive profile of the baby to be provided before the birth.

The second is the aggressively libertarian interpretation of the 1967 Abortion Act, which means that in this country we now effectively have abortion on demand.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is delighted to announce the appointment of Ailsa Anderson LVO as Director of Communications at Lambeth Palace. Mrs Anderson is currently the Communications and Press Secretary to the Queen.

Mrs Anderson will be the primary spokesperson for the Archbishop, and a member of his senior team at Lambeth Palace. She will manage the Lambeth Palace communications team, overseeing day to day contact with the media as well as driving and developing strategic communications.

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Administrators at the Cleveland Clinic announced on Wednesday that the health care giant would be cutting as much as $300 million from its 2014 budget, and that the cuts will likely include layoffs.

“Health care reform has really changed things, and the burden of cost is going to be falling on patients,” spokeswoman Eileen Shiel told The Plain Dealer. “We want to make sure we can keep care affordable.”

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Statement from Camp St. Christopher

9 September 2013

We met together with a common vision for Biblical, missionary, united Anglicanism to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

As Bishops with jurisdiction in South Carolina, we gathered for prayer, honest conversation about our historic and recent wounds and to identify areas where we can work together.

We committed to praying together and meeting regularly, deepening and broadening communication with one another and furthering missional work of the Gospel.

It was agreed amongst the group that Bishop Mark Lawrence serve as Convener for future gatherings and conversation.

We hope that our work together will serve as an inspiration and foretaste of the unity that we have in Jesus Christ.

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All communicants at St Peter and St Paul’s, Yalding, in Kent, now receive non-alcoholic wine, in deference to the residents of a rehabilitation centre situated near by.

The PCC of the church voted in July to approve the change, and it has been in place since 1 September. The Vicar of Yalding with Collier Street, the Revd Paul Filmer, is Chaplain to the Kenward Trust, which runs a rehabilitation centre for men seeking to overcome addiction to alcohol and drugs. The residents of the centre are encouraged to attend the church, which is less than a mile away. This month, Mr Filmer said that, since his arrival in Yalding in 2009, he had been considering ways in which these congregants could take communion without drinking alcohol.

“We had two options: to have an alternative non-alcoholic communion wine for those who preferred it, or to serve non-alcoholic wine to everyone. After much prayer and thought, we went for the latter as a more inclusive way forward, and one which will not in any way stigmatise any members of the congregation.”

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[You may find here]….the cross-examination of ECUSA’s expert witness on its polity and history, Dr. Robert Bruce Mullin, who testified all day on both April 29 and April 30 of this year. His cross-examination by Alan Runyan, …[counsel of] the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina under Bishop Lawrence, is a case study in how to break apart a structure into which every effort has been poured to make it appear as solid.

That cross-examination (on behalf of the Anglican Diocese) was followed by a further and well-honed cross-examination by Talmadge G. Brenner, the Chancellor for Quincy, on behalf of its bishop, the Rt. Rev. Alberto Morales, whom ECUSA had named individually as a counter-defendant in its counterclaim in the case. (That is what comes of suing people personally — they get their own attorneys, who have the right to participate fully in all aspects of the trial.)

Read it all (courtesy of A.S. Haley).

Almighty God, who didst call thy faithful servants John Coleridge Patteson and his companions to be witnesses and martyrs in the islands of Melanesia, and by their labors and sufferings didst raise up a people for thine own possession: Pour forth thy Holy Spirit upon thy Church in every land, that by the service and sacrifice of many, thy holy Name may be glorified and thy kingdom enlarged; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Grant to us, O Lord, the royalty of inward happiness, and the serenity which comes from living close to thee: Daily renew in us the sense of joy, and let the eternal spirit of the Father dwell in our souls and bodies, filling us with light and grace, so that, bearing about with us the infection of a good courage, we may be diffusers of life, and may meet all ills and cross accidents with gallant and high-hearted happiness, giving thee thanks always for all things.

—-The Pastor’s Prayerbook

Now Ahazi”²ah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samar”²ia, and lay sick; so he sent messengers, telling them, “Go, inquire of Ba”²al-ze”²bub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness.” But the angel of the Lord said to Eli”²jah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samar”²ia, and say to them, ”˜Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Ba”²al-ze”²bub, the god of Ekron?’ Now therefore thus says the Lord, ”˜You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone, but you shall surely die.’” So Eli”²jah went.

The messengers returned to the king, and he said to them, “Why have you returned?” And they said to him, “There came a man to meet us, and said to us, ”˜Go back to the king who sent you, and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Ba”²al-ze”²bub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone, but shall surely die.’” He said to them, “What kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?” They answered him, “He wore a garment of haircloth, with a girdle of leather about his loins.” And he said, “It is Eli”²jah the Tishbite.”
Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty men with his fifty. He went up to Eli”²jah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “O man of God, the king says, ”˜Come down.’” But Eli”²jah answered the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.

Again the king sent to him another captain of fifty men with his fifty. And he went up and said to him, “O man of God, this is the king’s order, ”˜Come down quickly!’” But Eli”²jah answered them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.

Again the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Eli”²jah, and entreated him, “O man of God, I pray you, let my life, and the life of these fifty servants of yours, be precious in your sight. Lo, fire came down from heaven, and consumed the two former captains of fifty men with their fifties; but now let my life be precious in your sight.” Then the angel of the Lord said to Eli”²jah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ”˜Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Ba”²al-ze”²bub, the god of Ekron,””is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?””therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone, but you shall surely die.’”

So he died according to the word of the Lord which Eli”²jah had spoken. Jeho”²ram, his brother, became king in his stead in the second year of Jeho”²ram the son of Jehosh”²aphat, king of Judah, because Ahazi”²ah had no son.

–2 Kings 1:2-17

It is the attack made on Judge Houck’s factual reasoning in the first seven pages of the Memorandum that I would like to consider. Here the attorneys argue that under an earlier case from the same Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal which would hear any appeal from Judge Houck’s decision Bishop vonRosenberg has certain prerogatives of his office with which Bishop Lawrence is allegedly interfering.

The argument is ludicrous on its face. Consider this point: Bishop Lawrence is also a bishop of a diocese — the one that is paying his salary — and so under that same precedent, he has certain prerogatives of his office as well. What Bishop vonRosenberg wants is to restrict Bishop Lawrence’s prerogatives just so he can exercise the ones he claims are his.

And that is not all. In Dixon v. Edwards (the earlier case in question), Bishop Dixon claimed that it was the vestry and rector of a particular parish in her own diocese that were interfering with her prerogatives as its bishop, and the court decided that her claims warranted relief. But Bishop Lawrence is not in the same diocese as Bishop vonRosenberg, and is not subject to his jurisdiction. If Bishop Lawrence’s activities in his own diocese are interfering with Bishop vonRosenberg’s activities in his, then can a federal court supply a remedy? To do so would be to wade too far into matters that are “quintessentially ecclesiastical” (to quote the Court of Appeal’s decision in the Schofield case), in violation of the First Amendment.

Read it all and please note the link to the South Carolina filing which you can read in full.

More South Carolina Links

In a wide-ranging interview for 16 Jesuit publications around the world, including America magazine in the United States, Pope Francis once again has waded into hot-button questions such as homosexuality, abortion and the role of women, not breaking with traditional doctrine but trying to shift the church’s emphasis from condemnation to mercy.

“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules,” Francis says. “Ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all.”

The pope also warns against a “restorationist” mentality in Catholicism and insists that “thinking with the church” cannot mean solely thinking with the hierarchy. Francis also pointedly says, “I have never been a right-winger.”

Read it all.

In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the church, saying it should be a “home for all” and not a “small chapel” focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings.

“It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” the pope told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal whose content is routinely approved by the Vatican. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

“We have to find a new balance,” the pope continued, “otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”

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Pope Francis has warned that the Catholic Church’s focus on abortion, contraception and gay marriage risked overshadowing its pastoral mission and threatened to bring down the church “like a house of cards.”

The Pope’s comments, made as part of a blunt, wide-ranging interview with the Italian Jesuit journal Civilta’ Cattolica, didn’t mark a break with church teaching. But they set out a vision of a church that is more welcoming and less preoccupied with strict doctrine.

In doing so, Pope Francis appeared to put more distance between himself and his two predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, who strongly supported traditional church dogma. Indeed, the interview comes in the wake of grumblings from some bishops that the new pope has failed to issue strong pronouncements on divisive issues.

Read it all.

Editor’s Note: This interview with Pope Francis took place over the course of three meetings during August 2013 in Rome. The interview was conducted in person by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal. Father Spadaro conducted the interview on behalf of La Civiltà Cattolica, America and several other major Jesuit journals around the world. The editorial teams at each of the journals prepared questions and sent them to Father Spadaro, who then consolidated and organized them. The interview was conducted in Italian. After the Italian text was officially approved, America commissioned a team of five independent experts to translate it into English. America is solely responsible for the accuracy of this translation…..

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Kattey, who was released by his abductors after nine days of captivity in the forest, said the political leadership in the country must begin to be sensitive to the plights of the governed by carrying out the basic responsibilities of government to her citizens.

The Archbishop while narrating his ordeal in the den of his abductors, frowned at the allegation by the Rivers State Police Command that it facilitated his rescue. “The police did not rescue me and my wife. That the police rescued me and my wife is not true. I saw the police for the first time two days ago. The police public relations officer is telling lies. The commissioner of police apologised to me yesterday (Tuesday), “he said.

Read it all.

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The Federal Reserve lost its chance for a “freebie” by deciding not to begin scaling back its $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program because the markets had already factored in the taper, hedge fund pro Stanley Druckenmiller told CNBC on Thursday….

Druckenmiller argued that the Fed’s lack of action will make it much harder for the next central bank chairman to start tapering.

Read it all (the full video of the interview is highly recommended if you have the time).

In other legal matters, the [new diocese of the] Episcopal Church in South Carolina has filed a separate legal action asking the federal court to rule that its liability insurance policy provides coverage for the state lawsuit.

Attorneys for The Episcopal Church in South Carolina contacted the Church Insurance Company of Vermont in writing in August. The company denied coverage, prompting the legal action to clarify the matter, according to Thomas S. Tisdale, Jr., Chancellor of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina. The case also has been assigned to Judge Houck.

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U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck has been asked to reconsider his dismissal of a federal lawsuit arising from the Episcopal schism in eastern South Carolina.

Houck last month dismissed the action brought by Bishop Charles vonRosenberg and ruled that the legal issues should be settled in state court. The bishop represents parishes remaining with the national Episcopal Church following last year’s schism.

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Why write a book about religious freedom now?

Religious freedom is one of the world’s most urgent issues at this moment in history. For a start, it is the guarantee and protection of the foundational human right that best allows us the freedom to be human. Also, it is under assault around the world as never before, whether through brutal government oppression (think of China and Iran) or horrifying sectarian violence (think of Nigeria, Egypt, and much of the Middle East). But what makes the situation worse is the failure of the West to live up to the best of its heritage, and therefore to fail in demonstrating an alternative. This is especially tragic in the U.S., where the founders’ settlement, which James Madison called the “true remedy” to the problem, is steadily being destroyed by fifty years of culture warring. And all this is happening at a time when the challenge of “living with our deepest differences” has become an urgent global problem.

There are of course endless academic studies of the issue, and many individuals and organizations have stood courageously against the violations of religious freedom, but where are the constructive proposals that lead to a better way? And where are the statesmanlike leaders addressing the issue? I hope my book will contribute to a new Western debate reaffirming the foundational importance of religious freedom. I hope too that it will challenge Americans not to squander their heritage foolishly as so many are doing now.

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Seeing a more uneven economic climate than they expected and the potential for fiscal discord in Washington, Federal Reserve officials got cold feet Wednesday and decided to keep their signature easy-money program in place for the time being.

The move, coming after Fed officials spent months alerting the public that they might begin to pare their $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program at the September policy meeting, marks the latest in a string of striking turnabouts from Washington policy makers that have whipsawed markets in recent days.

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A group of Zambian Anglicans wowed by the impact of rural evangelism has challenged the Church to evangelise to the farthest parts of the country.

The challenge came following a week of church planting in one of Zambia’s most remote and neglected towns of Chama, a small town in the Eastern Province of Zambia. The headquarters of Chama District, Chama town is one of the most remote district headquarters in the country, lying just inside the eastern edge of Luangwa National Park.

Fr Katete Jackson Jones is a priest from Lusaka Diocese and one of the organisers of the project. He told ACNS today, “Most of the churches that we currently have in Zambia were planted by missionaries many years ago, but the Church today has not done much to plant indigenous churches in the country”.

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In his first interview since his son’s suicide in April, famed pastor Rick Warren told CNN that he knew his son, Matthew, had bought a gun, dismissed rumors that Matthew was gay and said he doesn’t blame God for the tragedy.

“I have cried every single day since Matthew died,” Warren said Tuesday in an exclusive interview with CNN.

“But that – that’s actually a good thing. Grief is a good thing. It’s the way we get through the transitions of life.”

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