The Bishop of Carlisle has praised the transforming power of a city centre church garden project that has won a national award this month for its work in turning around the lives of homeless people.

St John’s Church Gardens in Waterloo (Southwark Diocese) is run by St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots project and encourages homeless people to work in the grounds with qualified horticultural trainers. It is one of five sites across London tended by the group.

Bishop James Newcome, lead bishop on healthcare issues, visited the project as part of the national Gardening Against the Odds awards. He urged churches across the country to consider whether they could link up with similar charitable projects, using their land.

Read it all and there is a video for those interested.

Grinnell’s coaches, in other words, kept their star guard on the floor and shooting, and kept up their full-court defensive pressure, against an opposing team they were leading by 50, then 60, then 70 points. A college that prides itself on its values ”” rigorous academic standards, commitment to the common good, historical involvement in the abolition and Social Gospel movements ”” inflicted a defeat so absolute that it borders on public humiliation.

Sporting tradition has always made allowances so the vanquished can save face. Youth leagues have a “slaughter rule” to halt lopsided games. Football quarterbacks with a big lead hand off the ball rather than passing it. Basketball teams run down the clock instead of running up the score. Coaches pull the starters and send in the bench warmers. Very little mitigation of that sort happened last November at Grinnell.

And beyond the question of athletic ethics, the rout has taken on an overtly religious cast. Jack Taylor, an evangelical Christian, attributed his achievement to divine intervention.

Read it all.

Stott: I believe that to preach or to expound the scripture is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and His people obey Him. I gave that definition at the Congress on Biblical Exposition and I stand by it, but let me expand a moment.

My definition deliberately includes several implications concerning the scripture. First, it is a uniquely inspired text. Second, the scripture must be opened up. It comes to us partially closed, with problems which must be opened up.

Beyond this, we must expound it with faithfulness and sensitivity. Faithfulness relates to the scripture itself. Sensitivity relates to the modern world. The preacher must give careful attention to both.

Read it all.

Lord Jesus, risen from the dead and alive for evermore: Stand in our midst today as in the upper room; show us thy hands and thy side; speak thy peace to our hearts and minds; and send us forth into the world as thy witnesses; for the glory of thy name.

–John R. W. Stott (1921-2011)

I will extol thee, my God and King, and bless thy name for ever and ever. Every day I will bless thee, and praise thy name for ever and ever. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall laud thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of thy majesty, and on thy wondrous works, I will meditate.

–Psalm 145:1-5

An Episcopal pastor and former hospital chaplain has released a book titled Revealing Heaven: The Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences, which chronicles over 200 near-death experiences that people have shared with him. The accounts describe both heavenly and hellish experiences, some of which challenge conservative Christian beliefs.

The Rev. John W. Price, 74, who continues to serve at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, shared in an exclusive phone interview with The Christian Post that he has spoken to more than 237 people who have had near-death experiences, despite his initial reservations.

Ordained as a priest in 1965, Price admits that at the start of his career, he did not believe in near-death experiences at all, and even turned away the first couple of people who tried to share with him visions of what they went through. As he explains in Revealing Heaven, when he became a chaplain at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston and more people starting coming up to him with their stories, he started paying closer attention ”“ and his views began changing….

Read it all.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby are among 80 religious leaders who have written to the G8 heads of government urging them to keep promises on foreign aid and to “help to create an environment that encourages the conditions for inclusive, equitable and sustainable economic growth.”

Read it all.

The Episcopal bishop for Arizona joined several religious and union leaders urging that family-unification policies be included in any comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Bishop Kirk Smith said that the family is the “chief social unit in society” and protecting and keeping immigrant families together should be paramount as federal lawmakers consider reform.

“This is one thing that we do all agree on, and that is support of the family, because we consider that to be an imperative that’s given to us by our religion and by our God,” Smith said on a conference call with the other officials.

Read it all.

A custom-built programmable 3D printer can create materials with several of the properties of living tissues, Oxford University scientists have demonstrated.

The new type of material consists of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films, which can perform some of the functions of the cells inside our bodies. These printed ‘droplet networks’ could be the building blocks of a new kind of technology for delivering drugs to places where they are needed and potentially one day replacing or interfacing with damaged human tissues. Because droplet networks are entirely synthetic, have no genome and do not replicate, they avoid some of the problems associated with other approaches to creating artificial tissues ”“ such as those that use stem cells.

Read it all and watch the video also.

Read it all.

More than half of Americans think the Bible has too little influence on a culture they see in moral decline, yet only one in five Americans read the Bible on a regular basis, according to a new survey.

More than three-quarters of Americans (77 percent) think the nation’s morality is headed downhill, according to a new survey from American Bible Society.

The survey showed the Bible is still firmly rooted in American soil: 88 percent of respondents said they own a Bible, 80 percent think the Bible is sacred, 61 percent wish they read the Bible more, and the average household has 4.4 Bibles.

Read it all.

Erica Brown, a prominent rabbi in Washington, recently wrote an article complaining about a “customer service” problem in the Jewish community. “We walk into synagogues and schools . . . and no one says hello. Few know our names (maybe for months or years). A friend in an interfaith marriage says that when he takes his wife to shul, no one talks to them. When he goes to his wife’s church, everyone comes over to greet them.”

David Polonsky, director of communications at Adas, tells me that when he moved to Washington a few years ago and called around to find out about high-holiday services, he was told they would cost him hundreds of dollars. “I’m a young person calling them and asking them for a Jewish experience,” he recalls, yet no one asked for his name, let alone invited him to the synagogue. Shabbat-Hopping at least makes people feel welcome.

The conservative Adas Israel, the reform Washington Hebrew Congregation, and the nondenominational Sixth & I Historic Synagogue have all made a big deal of welcoming young professionals””even when there is no Shabbat-Hopping event.

Read it all.

American employers hired at the slowest pace in nine months in March, a sign that Washington’s austerity drive could be stealing momentum from the economy.

The economy added just 88,000 jobs last month and the jobless rate ticked a tenth of a point lower to 7.6 percent largely due to people dropping out of the work force, Labor Department data showed on Friday.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a gain of 200,000.

Read it all.

“We have carefully examined the claims made against The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, and inherent in all these claims are federal statutory and constitutional issues that must be decided in a federal court rather than in South Carolina state court,” said Thomas Tisdale, chancellor of the continuing diocese, in a statement.

[Mark Lawrence and the diocese of South Carolina]…. has 30 days to respond to the notice of removal.

Read it all.

According to figures released by the Diocese of London attendance at City churches has risen by a almost a quarter since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. The most recent figures show 3,566 people as registered members of City churches in 2011, an increase of 24 per cent on the figures for 2007. In the rest of the Church of England membership figures were stable or showed only a slight decline in the same period. One City clergyman, the Ven Peter Delaney, who is the priest in charge of St Stephen Walbrook and a former Archdeacon of London told the ”˜Financial Times’ that stress and anxiety were causing financial workers to seek comfort in the Christian faith. James Gerry, a churchwarden at St Mary Woolnoth, who works in the insurance industry, told the same newspaper that “People are facing more pressures, fuses are short, there is tension in the workplace, and people are struggling to cope”.

He said that some people are also seeking moral guidance.

Read it all (may require subscription).

The Dean of Durham, the Very Revd Michael Sadgrove, has welcomed a statement issued by the new manager of Sunderland Football Club, Paolo Di Canio, on Wednesday, saying that he does “not support the ideology of fascism”.

Dean Sadgrove wrote an open letter to Mr Di Canio on Tuesday, seeking clarification whether he held fascist beliefs. Mr Di Canio, whose appointment as Sunderland manager was announced on Sunday evening, gave a straight-arm salute more than once when he was a player, and said in his autobiography that he was “fascinated by Mussolini”.

The former Foreign Secretary David Miliband resigned from the board of Sunderland FC because of “past political statements” made by Mr Di Canio.

Read it all.

You can find the the basic information about this there. But make sure, too, to watch this whole excerpt and then find it and try to absorb the whole thing–just an incredible story all the way through.

Update: The official trailer may be watched there.

REV. KENNETH SEMON (The Church of the Holy Faith, Sante Fe, NM): I try to tell people””don’t just come on Sunday, you know, you’ll miss it. You’ll miss everything that this means and all that leads up to it.

They’re called the three solemn days. To go through the experience of the three days is really to go through what changes life for people. And it starts Maundy Thursday with the washing of the feet and the last supper and Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist.

REV. ROCKY SCHUSTER (Episcopal Priest, Taos, NM): Jesus gives the new commandment””love one another as I have loved you, as opposed to as you would have others love you. You serve one another, you feed one another, you take care of one another, even to the point of death. And in the process of doing that, you’ll find new life, you’ll get the Easter experience, you’ll discover what eternal life is really all about.

Read or watch it all.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son did, in this season, burst the bonds of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it: Grant that we may be risen with him and walk henceforth in newness of life; and bring us at last to the joy of thy eternal kingdom. Hear us, O Father, for the sake of him who is the firstborn from the dead, and is now alive for evermore, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

–1 Corinthians 15:51-58

The Anglican Church has revealed three options for the rebuild of the ChristChurch Cathedral.

The public can now vote for their favourite, before the church leaders make the final decision.

The fate of the most well-known church in the country has been tied up in court cases and shrouded in secrecy since the big quake in 2011, but today the three final options for the cathedral’s future were unveiled to the public.

Read it all.

The leader of the Anglican Church of Polynesia is calling for an open debate about same-sex marriage when church leaders meet in Suva next month.

The leader of the Anglican Church of Polynesia is calling for an open debate about same-sex marriage when church leaders meet in Suva next month.

Archbishop Winston Halapua says it’s important the church responds to changes in public opinion and that it is not static.

Read it all.

Desmond Tutu, a clarion voice from the pulpit during South Africans’ struggle against racial apartheid, has won the £1.1m Templeton prize for advancing the “spiritual liberation” of people around the world.

The John Templeton Foundation describes the 40-year-old prize as the world’s biggest annual monetary award for individuals. Tutu, who adds it to honours including the Nobel peace prize, said he was “totally bowled over”.

The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town helped keep the struggle alive during the dark years when Nelson Mandela and other activists were jailed or exiled. He went on to chair the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Ever outspoken, he has admitted sometimes feeling angry with God and two years ago wrote a book with the provocative title God is Not a Christian.

Read it all.

In the light of this Easter morning that is now dawning, I want to ask you, especially those of you gathered here to make your new commitment to Christ in baptism or confirmation: Do you expect, do you long, with Mary Magdalene, to ”˜see the Lord’ in this life? And if so, what can this mean? What is it so to ”˜see’ the resurrected Jesus, to commit yourself to a belief in him, and his life beyond death? What is it to assert, with this, that there is a divine, transcendent force in our universe which rises beyond death, tragedy and failure, which captivates our hearts and minds and turns our lives out of darkness into light?

Everything hangs on this question for us as Christians. If there is no resurrection, if ”˜one did not rise from the dead’, then our faith is indeed ”˜in vain’, as St. Paul puts it. The problem only comes ”“ let us be honest ”“ in clarifying what, exactly, we are being asked to do in believing this….

Read it all.

In 2004 Sandra and I flew to the northernmost part of Uganda to visit a couple of theological seminaries in the city of Arua. The Ugandan seminary was relatively well appointed. Its faculty joyful. Its students adequately fed and eager to learn. The Sudanese seminary, across town, was a study in contrasts. Bare buildings, dirt floors, underfed students, listless faculty were all testimony to the suffering of Sudanese people who had sought refuge across the Uganda border to save their lives.

Today South Sudan is its own country, thanks to the accord in 2011, by which 8 million Sudanese ”“ mostly African and Christian (as opposed to northern Sudanese who are Arab and Muslim) ”“ ceded from Sudan. People like the seminarians we saw are now moving back home and rebuilding the decimated southern part of the country. When we lived in Pittsburgh we got to know many of the so-called “Lost Boys” who had come to America back in the 1980’s and ”˜90’s as refugees. Beautiful young men, many of them had seen the most brutal atrocities the human mind can imagine.

These atrocities are paraded across the wide-screen in a new movie from Relativity Media called Machine Gun Preacher. Starring Gerard Butler as Sam Childers and Michelle Monagan as his longsuffering wife Lynn, the movie tells the true story of one man’s effort to help the suffering children of Sudan….

Read it all.

Imagine taking a college exam, and, instead of handing in a blue book and getting a grade from a professor a few weeks later, clicking the “send” button when you are done and receiving a grade back instantly, your essay scored by a software program.

And then, instead of being done with that exam, imagine that the system would immediately let you rewrite the test to try to improve your grade.

EdX, the nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to offer courses on the Internet, has just introduced such a system and will make its automated software available free on the Web to any institution that wants to use it. The software uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers, freeing professors for other tasks….

Read it all.

The New York Times has been taking quite a bit of heat for its shockingly erroneous understanding of Christianity. Earlier this week, it published a brief story about Pope Francis’ Easter message and went on to say that “Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life.”

Now, there are many things wrong with that line, as my kindergartner could tell you.

I thought my write-up of the piece was pretty mild…[but a number of others disagreed]….

Read it all.

The friars are something of a hybrid between monks and diocesan priests. They live together in a priory, sharing prayers and meals. But unlike monks, they work in the broader community in preaching and teaching roles in churches, universities and secondary schools. It is a way of life that Pope Francis himself has chosen, shunning the papal palace for a guesthouse to “live in community” with bishops and priests at the Vatican.

In the United States, the largest northeastern branch is expecting 18 novices to enter its theology school in Washington, which was expanded three years ago. In the smaller southern region based in New Orleans, the Dominicans are scrambling to finance an influx of novices ”” six this year ”” with annual expenses of $30,000 for lodging and theology education over seven years.

“People see the habit in a much more positive light then clerical clothing, the black shirt, white collar and suit,” said Martin Ganeri, who is a Dominican vocations promoter for England, where five people entered the order this year. “The habit doesn’t have the negative image of the clergy, the child abuse issue.”

Read it all.

MarketWatch: Since Nixon’s “abomination” as you call it, we have had some periods where government spending to GDP actually went down, like during the Clinton era. Doesn’t that show it’s just the choices made by Congress rather than the Fed to blame [for the problem of rising national debt as a % of GDP]?

Stockman: There is the issue that Congress ultimately is the fiscal authority. But my argument is, when the Fed becomes a massive buyer of bonds and debt and artificially suppresses interest rate below market-clearing levels, it’s a terrible signal to the Congress that debt is cheap, that running deficits is a viable strategy. So therefore they are induced to kick the can, to let it drift and avoid hard choices. Who wants to tell the public you are going to take your broccoli of higher taxes and lower benefits and spending if you can issue debt on a three-year basis for 40 basis points. That’s free. I was in Congress, they don’t do decimal math, OK? And they think the money is free, it’s a bad problem philosophically, we shouldn’t be doing this for the great long run, but it’s no harm today.

Then they have professors like Krugman who give them the disingenuous advice that the bond vigilantes don’t care. The market is saying, “fine with us, we don’t care, keep piling the debt on, we love it.” That is so much baloney. The reason the interest rate on the 10-year bond 10_YEAR -0.33% today is 1.8% or whatever it happened to settle today, is the market knows the Fed is buying half of the debt and is front running the Fed. And it is renting the bond on repo, 98 cents on the dollar, based on overnight money that’s free thanks to Bubbles Ben as well.

Read it all.

Felix and Oscar quarrel all the time, but they cannot imagine life without one another. Each has the other’s power of attorney. There is as much chance of their moving to separate apartments, now, after all these years, as there is that the Empire State Building will spontaneously collapse into dust. They wouldn’t know how to get through a single day. So they wish to celebrate this lifelong friendship. They wish to throw a party, and to gain the Social Security benefits that accrue to the survivor in a marriage.

So Felix and Oscar are going to tie the knot.

In a saner day than ours, someone would object, “There’s no knot to tie! They can’t marry! You’re confusing friendship with marriage.” That would be quite right. Nothing prevents Felix or Oscar from naming the other as sole legatee in his will. But nothing that Felix and Oscar do with one another is specifically marital. The thing that a married man and woman do, that no one else can do, is to consummate the marriage, bringing it to its fullest realization. The marital act unites across the chasm of the sexes and across the generations, from the past into the future. In it alone do human beings bring together precious strands of human history, from the beginning of our race. In it alone dwells the possibility of new life. The act is biologically, essentially, summative of the past and oriented toward the future.

Read it all.