[Justin] Welby, the people’s primate, takes the bus to meetings, tweets about shoe shopping and admits he is tempted to nod off during particularly dull after-lunch synod debates. Only last month, he gave an interview in which he let slip that one of the greatest frustrations of moving to London is that takeaway delivery men get confused when he orders. They have never had to drop off a chicken tikka masala at Lambeth Palace before.

His love of pounding the streets has been welcomed by several followers, not least Graham Daniels, a former Cambridge United left back and now general director of Christians in Sport. “It proves he is fit for purpose, not just theological but physically, too. There are 150,000 sports clubs in the country with 10 million members, so it is great to see that he can relate to all those people.”

It should not be such a surprise that the Archbishop exercises. He is, to use the marvellous Victorian idiom, a “muscular Christian”, which has never been a wholly metaphorical turn of phrase.

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Dubbed “bonnet rippers” by journalists who have suggested that the books are a kind of “Fifty Shades of Grey” for church ladies, Amish romance novels are written and read mostly, but not exclusively, by evangelical Christian women. “Getting Dirty in Dutch Country” is how a headline in Bloomberg Businessweek described the genre.

But evangelical erotica this is not. The stories feature suitors whose suspenders stay put. “The longer he stood so close to her, the stronger the need to kiss her lips became,” writes Ms. Woodsmall of her hero’s thoughts in “When the Heart Cries.” “But he was afraid she might not appreciate that move.”

Readers of Amish fiction are looking not for racy stories, but for romances in which the trinity of modesty, chastity and fidelity reign. While the books often feature a female protagonist that falls in love with a man outside of her community, the relationship always remains sweetly romantic.

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…we live in a time where the very freedom to express our respective faith narratives stands threatened. In essence, we’ve never been down this road before. From the HHS mandate requiring religious organizations to sacrifice conviction on the altar of political expediency to businesses such as Hobby Lobby required to abandon conscience or suffer the consequences of continued litigation; freedom of religion in America can best be characterized in the year 2013 as nothing other than an “endangered species.”

For that matter, we must embrace one simple truth: as people of faith, we cannot be silent while our sacred liberty lies threatened. We cannot be silent while Billy and Franklin Graham suffer the wrath of Uncle Sam via the conduit of an IRS audit for the simple act of articulating biblical truth. We cannot be silent while our Catholic brothers and sisters pay the penalty of non- compliance with a health care mandate obligating the rendering of services that run counter to the very ethos centered around the sacredness of life ”“ in and out of the womb.

Silence is not an option.

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Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Since the devastating attacks of 9/11””when the world saw afresh that religion has geo-political consequences, and that Islam is the most volatile religion on the world’s stage””more and more Christians have been asking this question.

Yale theologian Miroslav Volf answers the question in a recent book (Allah: A Christian Response) with a nuanced but insistent Yes: Christians and Muslims do indeed worship the same God. In a review of Volf’s book, Baylor historian Thomas Kidd faults Volf for sidestepping the question of salvation””and therefore the question of true worship””and for not being critical enough in his evaluation of the identity of the God or gods of these two religions.

Kidd is quite right; indeed, there are deeper problems with Volf’s thesis. His argument for the identity of the Muslim and Christian Gods collapses under its own weight. Volf’s own logic underscores what the Qur’an itself suggests””that the God of the Qur’an is radically different from the God Christians worship.

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“Clutter is the disease of American writing….We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.”

–William Zinsser in a profile article in the N.Y. Times.

The Church of England has admonished one of its priests for calling the Archbishop of Canterbury a “w****r” on Facebook in a row over gay marriage. The Rev Marcus Ramshaw, who like Justin Welby trained for the priesthood at Cranmer Hall, Durham, also described him as a “massive mistake”.

After the Archbishop spoke against gay marriage in the House of Lords, Mr Ramshaw called for a petition to be set up urging him to resign….

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Fourteen diocesan bishops were present at the vote on a wrecking amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on Tuesday night, the largest number to attend a vote in recent times.

Of the 14, nine voted for Lord Dear’s wrecking amendment to deny the Bill a second reading. Five abstained. The nine were: the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Bristol, Birmingham, Chester, Coventry, Exeter, Hereford, London, and Winchester. The Bishops of Derby, Guildford, Leicester, Norwich, and St Edmundsbury & Ipswich abstained.

The amendment was rejected in the House of Lords by 390 votes to 148. Several Christian Peers spoke in favour of the Bill. Lord Black of Brentwood, a Christian in a civil partnership, said: “I support it because I am a Christian and I believe we are all equal in the eyes of God, and should be so under man’s laws.”

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O Almighty God and Heavenly Father, who by thy divine providence has appointed for each of us our work in life, and hast commanded us that we should not be slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving thee; help us always to remember that our work is thy appointment, and to do it heartily as unto thee. Preserve us from slothfulness, and make us to live with loins girded and lamps burning, that whensoever our Lord may come, we may be found striving earnestly to finish the work that thou hast given us to do; through the same Jesus Christ our Saviour.

–E. M. Goulburn

Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God. “And you shall make response before the LORD your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

–Deuteronomy 26:4-9

The NSA and FBI are tapping into the servers of nine U.S. Internet firms, extracting audio, video, photos, e-mails and documents that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

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The Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing 2013 has been awarded to Dr Luke Bretherton for his book Christianity and Contemporary Politics, published by Wiley-Blackwell, it was announced…[last] week….

The prize was presented by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams of Oystermouth at the Telegraph Hay Festival…. Dr Bretherton, who is now the Associate Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University Divinity School in the United States, was formerly Reader in Theology and Politics at King’s College, London. His book was described by Lord Williams as “a finely argued theological take on the situation we face, based on practical examples and resources”.

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Attorneys for the diocese asked Houck on Thursday to move the case back into state court.

“Under federal law, there is no basis for federal jurisdiction,” attorney Alan Runyon said. He said property issues and the use of the diocesan name can be resolved under state law and don’t raise any constitutional issues.

He argued that under the South Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act, a nonprofit’s membership in a large group is voluntary and it can end the association if it wants. “That doesn’t change because they are religious organizations,” he said.

But Matthew McGill, representing the diocese of parishes remaining with the national church, said the case concerns the First Amendment protections of freedom of religion.

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Turkey is about to enact the strictest alcohol laws in the republic’s 89-year history in a move that some Turks complain is part of a creeping Islamist agenda.

The bill supported by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would prohibit the sale of alcohol from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and forbid the depiction of alcohol consumption on television, billboards, newspapers, storefronts and at festivals.

Liquor sales within 100 yards of a school or mosque would be banned.

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The gist of the article is this. Public discourse in this country is now dominated by what the author calls “Motivated Thinking.” Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale University, says that motivated thinking occurs “when a person is conforming their assessments of information to some interest or goal that is independent of accuracy.” An interest or goal, he says may be “remaining a well-regarded member of a political party (we might add or a church), or winning the next election, or even just winning an argument.” In these instances and many others, reasoning may well be carried on in a way that is independent of the facts of the matter in question.

The author of the article (Ezra Klein) gives a number of examples of the sort of thinking social scientists have in mind when they speak of Motivated Thinking. My favorite comes from professor Geoffrey Cohen of Stanford University. He showed a group of students two articles””one a generic news story and one that described a proposed welfare policy. The generic story was a decoy. Prof Cohen’s real interest was in reactions to the one describing welfare policy. He wanted to know if party affiliation influenced voters when they assess new policies. To find out he produced multiple versions of the welfare article. Some students read about programs that were generous and others programs that were anything but. Nevertheless, in some versions of these articles that described a generous policy he indicated support by Republican Party leaders; and in some of the ones containing meager programs he described them as having Democratic support. He found that if a liberal student’s party endorsed the meager program so did the liberal student, and if the conservative party leaders supported the more liberal proposal, so did the conservative students. In each case the goal serving to motivate and shape thinking was based not on an assessment of the policy proposals themselves but upon party loyalty and identification. On both the left and the right Prof. Cohen found that Motivated Thinking rather than assessment of the facts determined the outcome.

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It was D-Day, and Abe Milkis found himself up to his neck in the war right away. When the boat ramp was dropped off Utah Beach, the 101st Airborne troopers piled out with all their combat gear.

The boat crews didn’t want to get too close, so the soldiers disembarked far from shore. “We had some little guys, we had to carry them. I only went in up to my neck,” said Milkis, who was 5 feet, 111/2 inches tall.

Speaking in a strong, assured voice at his home in Wynnewood last week, Milkis reached across 69 years of history to bring alive the baptism of fire for a 20-year-old soldier from West Philadelphia. “Everybody was very nervous,” he said coolly.

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Bioethicist Peter Singer compared women and children to cows overgrazing a field and said ”” at the global Women Deliver Conference last week, hailed as the most important meeting to focus on women and girls’ human rights in a decade ”” that women’s reproductive rights may one day have to be sacrificed for the environment.

The controversial Princeton University professor, known for championing infanticide and bestiality, was a featured panelist on Thursday at the three-day Women Deliver conference attended by Melinda Gates and more than 4,000 abortion and contraception activists in Kuala Lumpur.

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We are grateful to the Very Rev. John Barr who has written the following note and prayer. We commend them both to you.

Today, June 6, attorneys representing the Diocese of South Carolina will go before a federal judge to request our case be moved back to its original venue in the South Carolina state court system. Our sense is that this hearing might well be a critical crossroads. We believe that the original venue of state court””where the Diocese and its parishes have sought a simple declaratory judgment as to whether we have title to our own property and whether we are the Diocese of South Carolina””is the true venue where the question should be settled.
Ultimately, of course, God owns the property. The gospel never changes; his promises are indestructible; and our high calling as Christ’s disciples is bright and undiminished. We see through a glass darkly, and God’s perfect will for us is sovereign, but we are asking you to pray for the return of this litigation to state court. No doubt, God will work his purposes out whatever the legal venue. The apostle Paul reminds us, “I have learned to be content in all circumstances”¦”

Gracious Lord, we pray that your will would be done on June 6. May we want what you desire. Speak your words alone through Alan Runyan and the other attorneys who represent us. May the courtroom be filled with the pleasant aroma of Christ, and at the end of the day, protect this Diocese and its parishes that we might bring the redemptive power of the biblical gospel to the South Carolina low country and beyond. Let not our fear of outcomes tarnish our joy or deter us from the mission you have given us. Teach us to bless and never curse those on the other side of this conflict. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And make us victorious over-comers wherever this road leads. For we ask it all in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

The Bishop of Leicester, who leads the bishops in the House of Lords, said they would now concentrate their efforts on “improving” rather than halting an historic redefinition of marriage.

It represents a dramatic change of tack in the year since the Church insisted that gay marriage posed one of the biggest threats of disestablishment of the Church of England since the reign of Henry VIII.

And it comes despite a warning from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, that the redefinition of marriage would undermine the “cornerstone” of society.

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Both Houses of Parliament have now expressed a clear view by large majorities on the principle that there should be legislation to enable same-sex marriages to take place in England and Wales. It is now the duty and responsibility of the Bishops who sit in the House of Lords to recognise the implications of this decision and to join with other Members in the task of considering how this legislation can be put into better shape.

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Thousands of pilgrims from Zimbabwe and beyond are expected to gather in Harare next week to commemorate the life of Bernard Mizeki, a lay African catechist and missionary martyred in 1896.

The celebrations, between 14 ”“ 16 June, will be the first ones held at the martyr’s shrine in more than five years. Previously Anglican pilgrims had been barred from the site by excommunicated former bishop Nolbert Kunonga.

Bishop of Harare the Rt Revd Chad Gandiya told ACNS, “After having been in exile for five years and failing to host these celebrations at the shrine, this years’ celebrations are indeed special and the theme God is faithful could not be more timely.

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Watch it all, from a speech hosted by Christian Solidarity International (CSI).

The newly-installed Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will visit Pope Francis on 14 June, the Vatican has confirmed.

It will mark the first meeting between Pope Francis and the new head of the Church of England and spiritual head of the global Anglican Church.

The brief courtesy visit is expected to be “informal” but “important” according to a representative of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, whose president Cardinal Kurt Koch will meet and pray with Welby. The Archbishop of Canterbury is also expected to visit the tomb of Blessed John Paul II.

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Vice President Kiwanuka Ssekandi has told African churches to work with governments to ensure socio-economic transformation of Africa by placing emphasis on integration and unity of African people.

He made it clear that for the continent’s states to handle poverty, churches need to join governments in that fight.

“Government, through various interventions, is empowering every household to produce not only for subsistence, but have surplus for sale,” said the VP.

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The Auckland Council has approved funding of $3 million to help renovate New Zealand’s oldest and biggest Anglican church.

At a council meeting, the Holy Trinity Cathedral asked for help with the project which has a total cost of $12 million. It includes finishing a chapel, joining the neighbouring St Mary’s Church to the cathedral, and repairing two pipe organs.

Despite some strong opposition during a two-hour debate on Thursday, councillors decided to support it in a 10 to 6 vote.

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“We’re beginning a new sermon series that is scaring me to death,” pastor Jay Dennis said on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008, from the pulpit of First Baptist Church at the Mall.

The series was titled “Sex and the Saint.” For six Sundays, Dennis addressed what God says in His Word about sex. His goal: to combat a “stronghold” in the congregation that destroys Christian families and harms teenagers, singles and even children — the stronghold of sexual sin.

Dennis candidly conceded to the congregation that he would be criticized and misunderstood, that he would receive angry letters and emails, and that he fully expected to find himself in a spiritual battle.

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Attorneys representing separate Episcopal churches in eastern South Carolina are facing off in federal court.

The matter before U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck on Thursday is whether issues resulting from the split should be heard in state or federal court. One of the issues is title to an estimated half billion dollars in church property.

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O gracious and holy Father, give us wisdom to perceive thee, diligence to seek thee, patience to wait for thee, eyes to behold thee, a heart to meditate upon thee, and a life to proclaim thee; through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.

— Saint Benedict (480-c.543)

And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

–Luke 18:6-8

Listen here if you wish – recorded in 1988 marking the anniversary of the Queen’s Accession.

Introit: O Lord, make thy servant, Elizabeth (Byrd)
Responses: Anthony Piccolo
Psalms 20, 101, 121 (Felton, Cooper, Walford Davies)
First Lesson: Joshua 1 vv1-9
Canticles: Brian Chapple
Second Lesson: Revelation 21v22 – 22v4
Anthem: Zadok the Priest (Handel)
Hymn: The National Anthem
Organ voluntary: Orb and Sceptre (Walton)

I wasn’t surprised by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent statement about a “problem within Islam.”

It’s not as though I’ve never heard anything like it before. I hear it all the time.

Still, his words ”“ in response to a recent attack in London that left a British soldier dead ”“ made me wonder: How might the public have reacted in a different context, had Blair replaced the word “Islam” with “Christianity” or “Judaism”?

I’m guessing not well.

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