What is it like to operate a religiously-based institution of higher education in what is a seemingly secularized world of academics? How does a small college become a university and expand its enrollment? And what are the challenges these schools face in recruiting faculty? These and many more questions are answered by Dr. Joseph Castleberry, president of Northwest University (NU) located in Kirkland, WA just outside of Seattle. Dr. Castleberry took over the reins of NU shortly after it moved from being Northwest College to Northwest University.

Our conversation begins with a description of Northwest, including its history (starting as a Bible college in downtown Seattle 75 years ago) and current enrollment. Joe talks about the recent transition from “college” to “university” and explains the rationale behind that decision. He notes how NU is expanding into a number of branch campuses in Salem (OR) and Sacramento (CA), which are physical “brick and mortar” locations, and extensions in Nampa (ID). Northwest is also developing online degree programs for continuing adult education, as well. The purpose of these expansions is to go where the demand for higher education is, particularly with respect to ministerial training, which he says must be “close to the ground.” We also discuss how NU recruits students and while Dr. Castleberry reveals that most students come from Washington State, efforts to recruit abroad (both in the US and globally) often rely upon personal missionary networks, particulary via the Assemblies of God.

Read it all and then go for the podcast.

There’s a price to pay for becoming the voice of moderate conservatism and coalition politics. Even more so for refusing to march in lockstep with the Republican Party.

Ask the Rev. Joel Hunter of Northland Church, Florida’s largest evangelical congregation. Hunter, 65, says his suburban megachurch may have lost as many as 1,500 members, or 10 percent of its membership, as a result of his ecumenical and political activism.

Read it all.

After a long and passionate debate, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada meeting in Ottawa has passed a resolution on the issue of peace and justice in Palestine and Israel.

The resolution reiterates the established positions of the church, which “recognize the legitimate aspirations, rights and needs of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace with dignity within sovereign and secure borders; condemns the use of all kinds of violence, especially against civilians; calls for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza); and calls upon Israel, as an occupying power, to recognize the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the transfer and settlement of its citizen in occupied territories. ”

However, it also calls on Canadian Anglicans to take some new steps, including educating themselves more deeply.

Read it all.

[Jeff] Bauman grabbed what was left of his legs, lay back down and was writhing there when Allan Panter found him. Panter, an emergency room physician from Gainesville, Ga., had been in the crowd, too, but was unharmed. He pulled Bauman from the pile of bodies and placed the loose tissue back into his leg. Bauman screamed.

Panter tied a makeshift tourniquet around his right leg, placed a jacket on him and left Bauman so he could tend to the woman sprawled nearby whose eyes were open and empty.

I’m going to die, Bauman thought, lying there alone.

Read it all.

Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy thought can drag downwards; an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know thee, diligence to seek thee, wisdom to find thee, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Thomas Aquinas (1225”“1274)

But I through the abundance of thy steadfast love will enter thy house, I will worship toward thy holy temple in the fear of thee.

–Psalm 5:7

The violence that flared in Cairo Monday morning, leaving dozens of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi dead, exposes a deepening and destabilizing power vacuum in Egypt that is likely to make the Obama administration’s “neutral” stance toward Egypt’s political factions increasingly difficult to maintain.

President Obama says the US is “not aligned with” anyone in Egypt’s political upheaval in the aftermath of Mr. Morsi’s removal from power by the military last Wednesday, and only supports the Egyptian people’s aspirations for democracy and prosperity.

The US is reportedly urging all of Egypt’s principle political movements, including Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, to participate in political negotiations and in new presidential and parliamentary elections ”“ which as of yet have no date.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has used his first presidential address to the General Synod to call on the Church to recognise that the “cultural and political ground” in Britain is “changing”, and to “accept that there is a revolution in the area of sexuality, and we have not fully heard it”.

Speaking on the first day of the Synod meeting in York, on Friday evening, Archbishop Welby said that he was “not proposing new policy”, but spoke of the “notable hostility” to the Church’s current position.

“Anyone who listened, as I did, to much of the Same-sex Marriage Bill second reading debate in the House of Lords could not fail to be struck by the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland; predictable attitudes were no longer there,” he said.

Read it all.

Georgia was an early adopter of Christianity making it a state religion in 337AD. Georgians maintained their faith over the centuries despite the waves of invading hordes, including the armies of Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane.

Although the Soviets permitted religion to be practised, its reach was severely limited. In 1917, there were 2,455 working churches in Georgia, but by the mid-1980s there were only 80, along with a few monasteries and a seminary.

“During communism, the church was outdated, something for old ladies,” says political analyst Ghia Nodia.

Read it all.

The General Synod has, today, approved a draft reorganisation scheme that will see the creation of a new Diocese of Leeds, serving West Yorkshire and The Dales, and replacing the current Dioceses of Bradford, Ripon and Leeds, and Wakefield.

The new diocese will come into existence on a day to be set by the Archbishop of York after the scheme has been confirmed by Her Majesty the Queen through an Order in Council. Synod also approved a resolution establishing a Vacancy in See Committee for the new diocese so that the process for appointing the first Bishop of Leeds could begin.

Read it all.

A party of ultraconservative Islamists that emerged as an unexpected political kingmaker in Egypt after the military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi said on Monday that it was suspending its participation in efforts to form an interim government.

A spokesman for the Al Nour party said its decision was a reaction to a “massacre” hours earlier at an officers’ club here in which security officials said more than 30 people had been killed. The decision brought new complexities and unanswered questions to the effort to create a transitional political order.

Read it all.

Here are five reasons why:
1. Pastors and leaders need encouragement. Most of the people that follow me on Twitter are pastors, and sometimes I only talk to certain kinds of pastors– I’ve tweeted out “youth pastors,” “small church pastors,” and “church planters.” As I can, I try to encourage and serve them in the time we have (and sometimes after).
2. God can use random connections for greater purpose. Sometimes I tweet if people just want prayer, and I call them. I’ve prayed with a Pentecostal pastor whose wife was dying next to him in a hospital bed. I’ve prayed with a Presbyterian pastor who was fired that night. I firmly believe that those pastors saw that as God providing them the encouragement they needed at just that time….

Read it all.

The motion as amended which has just been passed h/t Thinking Anglicans for amended text:

“That this Synod:
(a) reaffirm its commitment to admitting women to the episcopate as a matter of urgency;
(b) instruct the Appointments Committee to appoint this month a Steering Committee to be in charge of the draft legislation required to that end;
(c) instruct the Business Committee to arrange for the First Consideration stage for that draft legislation to be taken at the November 2013 group of sessions, so that the subsequent stages can follow the timetable set out in paragraph 141 of the annex to GS 1886;
(d) instruct the Steering Committee to prepare the draft legislation on the basis described in paragraphs 79-88 of the annex to GS 1886 as ”˜option one’ with the addition of a mandatory grievance procedure for parishes in which diocesan bishops are required to participate, and invite the House of Bishops to bring to the Synod for consideration at the February 2014 group of sessions a draft Act of Synod or draft declaration to be made by the House to accompany the draft legislation; and
(e) urge that the process of facilitated conversations continue to be used at significant points in the formulation and consideration of the draft legislation.”

The motion (as amended) was carried with 319 votes in favour, 84 against and 22 recorded abstentions.

Motion and proposed amendments can be read here and the background paper provided is here. Video of the full debate should be available later.

T/A notes: [Option 1 comprises a measure and amending canon to make made it lawful for women to become bishops, and the repeal of the statutory rights to pass Resolutions A and B under the 1993 Measure, plus the rescinding of the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod.]

The CofE live stream when in session is available here

…Canon Porter then brought in a 24 professional “facilitators” to chair informal discussions in which every member of Synod, including the bishops and Archbishops, were asked how the defeat of the measure made them “feel”…

Read it all and see also earlier account from a participant, Bathwellschap here and Peter Ould’s comment here

First of all I would like to share with you the joy of having met, yesterday and today, a special group of pilgrims of the Year of Faith. It was made up of seminarians and novices. I ask you to pray for them that the love for Christ grow more and more in their life and they become true missionaries of the Kingdom of God.

The Gospel of this Sunday (Luke 10:1-12, 17-20) speaks to us precisely of this: the fact that Jesus is not an isolated missionary, he does not wish to carry out his mission alone, but involves his disciples. And today we see that, besides the 12 disciples, he calls another 72, and he sends them to the villages, 2 by 2, to announce that the Kingdom of God is near.

This is so beautiful! Jesus does not want to work alone, he has come to bring God’s love into the world and wants to spread it in communion (“con lo stile della comunione”), in fraternity (“con lo stile della fraternità”). Because of this he immediately forms a community of disciples, which is a missionary community. Immediately he teaches them to be missionaries, to go out.

But, look, the purpose here is not to socialize, to spend time together, no, the purpose is to announce the Kingdom of God, and this is urgent!

Read it all.

The official unemployment rate is 7.6%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 14.3% [and note that month over month U-6 ROSE from 13.8% to 14.3%]. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Read it all and he also has more on this today. I have emphasized the importance of U-6 as the best gauge of the employment situation over and over and over again–KSH.

You see this dog. It was but yesterday
I mused, forgetful of his presence here,
Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear;
When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,
A head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way
Right sudden against my face,–two golden-clear
Large eyes astonished mine,–a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek, to dry the spray!
I started first, as some Arcadian
Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove:
But as my bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan,
Who, by low creatures, leads to heights of love.

–Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

“If I had the authority,” declared the leader of an evangelical parachurch empire, “I’d almost be ready to decree that we go back to the King James.” That in response to my having written here that, if I had the authority, everybody would use the Revised Standard Version. The sorry fact is that English-speaking Christians have largely lost a common biblical vocabulary as a consequence of the proliferation of translations””and of paraphrases passing as translations””over the last forty years. I am told that there are nearly two hundred English translations on the market now, and Bible printers keep churning out new ones, for there seems to be a near insatiable market. There are designer translations for teenagers, mothers, business people, speakers of ebonics (stereotyped black talk), and just about any other market niche or itch that one can imagine.

The result is that little or nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to the recognition of biblical passages or phrases. It is not exactly a matter of biblical illiteracy, for it would seem that millions are regularly reading the Bible, which is a very good thing. But there is little shared biblical language among Christians, and, predictably, ever fewer biblical references in the public culture. The last consequence is not entirely due to the multiplication of versions, of course, but that, one cannot help but believe, is part of it….

Read it all.

I find joy in every day, not because life is always good, but because God is.

The first known use of the word “mainline” to describe the largest Protestant denominations and distinguish them from their growing evangelical and fundamentalist counterparts appeared in the New York Times in 1960””at the very moment when mainline Protestantism began its rapid decline. You don’t call something “mainline” or “mainstream” unless its supremacy is being disputed (think of the “mainstream media”). And the supremacy of older, more socially prestigious churches within American Protestantism was being directly disputed in the mid-1950s. It’s impossible to speak with precision about what constituted mainline Christianity, but in general the mainline churches de-emphasized doctrinal differences; were Northern and Midwestern rather than Southern; promoted social causes rather than personal conversion or repentance; and virtually always took the liberal line in politics. By 1960, liberal Protestantism enjoyed almost nothing of the authority that had seemed unassailable 15 years earlier.

In “The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline,” Elesha Coffman charts the half-century ascendancy of liberal Protestantism in American society from its beginnings in northern seminaries at the turn of the 20th century to its brief triumphant moment immediately after World War II, when it had no effective rival. She does this through the lens of the magazine that, in the absence of any formal governing body, was effectively this strand of Protestantism’s voice and conscience: the Christian Century.

Read it all (if needed another link is there).

Grant us, O Lord, to pass this day in gladness and peace, without stumbling and without stain; that reaching the eventide victorious over all temptation, we may praise thee, the eternal God, who art blessed, and dost govern all things, world without end.

–Mozarabic Liturgy

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

Stop the clocks, lob the history books onto the fire. Pinch yourself, and then again.

To be British and in love with sport in this age is to be blessed beyond the dreams of our long-suffering ancestors.

In the space of 12 months we have witnessed the nation’s greatest Olympics, its first ever winner of the Tour de France and now, in Andy Murray’s crowning as Wimbledon men’s singles champion, the greatest hoodoo of all blown apart in glorious, giddy style.

Read it all.

Nine of Britain’s brightest state school pupils have turned down places at Oxford and Cambridge, mostly to attend Ivy League universities in America, put off by the stuffy elitism and high fees.

It is the first time that a group of state-educated pupils has spurned Britain’s top two universities and follows a warning from the government’s social mobility watchdog that Oxford and Cambridge are failing to meet targets for widening their social mix. Experts predicted that it could be the start of a brain drain of children abroad.

Last week David Laws, the education minister, told The Sunday Times that he was deeply concerned by the situation and planned to intervene.

Read it all (subscription required).

Set a watch, O Lord, upon our tongue, that we may never speak the cruel word which is not true; or being true, is not the whole truth; or being wholly true, is merciless; for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

–Romans 5:1-5

…My group included two fairly prominent Synodical opponents of the November legislation: one Forward in Faith layman, and one conservative evangelical laywoman. There were others whose positions I did not know, but I imagine one or two of them had voted against in November. We were well facilitated so no-one was silenced, one or two of us were gently told to wait while others spoke, and we worked out way through a series of small group exercises about our feelings after November, and our senses about Options 1-4, as laid out in the paper for Monday’s debate.

So far, so touchy-feely. But in fact, it was ”“ to my mind ”“ a very worthwhile exercise. Before my very eyes I saw people who would not normally discuss their own views and feelings open up to one another. There was a significant conversation (listened to in silence by the rest of the group) between a male and a female priest in which he was able to ask questions, and she felt able to express her sense of pain and frustration ”“ in a much more wholesome atmosphere than we are used to.

It was unbelievably hot in our little meeting room. So heading for the plenary session in the main hall after tea was a welcome change. As was what happened next ”“ a professional theatre company giving us a playlet about the progress of the Women Bishop’s Bill. It had an unhappy ending. But then they did it again, but this time we (all 400 of us) could freeze the action, and one of us could take over one of the roles and try to change the direction of the thing. After much laughter, some poignant exchanges, and several runs through, David Porter re-appeared and gave us the gist of the 24 groups’ deliberations…..

Read it all and there is more on the Delphi Technique here and here

You may check it out here (including the “watch live” link provided).

Check it out.

The social context is changing radically. There is a revolution. It may be, it was, that 59% of the population called themselves Christian at the last census, with 25% saying they had no faith. But the YouGov poll a couple of weeks back was the reverse, almost exactly, for those under 25. If we are not shaken by that, we are not listening.

The cultural and political ground is changing. There is a revolution. Anyone who listened, as I did, to much of the Same Sex Marriage Bill Second Reading Debate in the House of Lords could not fail to be struck by the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland. Predictable attitudes were no longer there. The opposition to the Bill, which included me and many other bishops, was utterly overwhelmed, with amongst the largest attendance in the House and participation in the debate, and majority, since 1945. There was noticeable hostility to the view of the churches. I am not proposing new policy, but what I felt then and feel now is that some of what was said by those supporting the bill was uncomfortably close to the bone. Lord Alli said that 97% of gay teenagers in this country report homophobic bullying. In the USA suicide as a result of such bullying is the principle cause of death of gay adolescents. One cannot sit and listen to that sort of reality without being appalled. We may or may not like it, but we must accept that there is a revolution in the area of sexuality, and we have not fully heard it.

The majority of the population rightly detests homophobic behaviour or anything that looks like it. And sometimes they look at us and see what they don’t like. I don’t like saying that. I’ve resisted that thought. But in that debate I heard it, and I could not walk away from it.

Read it all.