The North American Lutheran Church (NALC) has chosen to partner with Trinity School for Ministry to create a “Seminary Center” for the training of future NALC pastors. In a nearly unanimous vote on August 8, 2013, the Convocation of the NALC took action to establish a new North American Lutheran Seminary (NALS). This seminary will not be a degree granting institution, rather, it will partner with existing accredited seminaries to provide sound theological education for NALC students. Trinity will soon welcome a new NALS Seminary Director to its Ambridge, PA campus to oversee the formation of NALC students, whether at Trinity or at one of the Houses of Study that will be developed throughout North America.

Lutheran students will earn a degree from Trinity School for Ministry, taking the core courses required in the Master of Divinity (MDiv) curriculum. For some courses they will take Lutheran alternatives taught by NALC professors to ensure a solid foundation in confessional Lutheranism.

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The Rev. vonRosenberg presently heads the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, the name given to those Episcopalians in the Diocese who want to remain with the national church. VonRosenberg has sued Lawrence over usage of the title of bishop, arguing that Lawrence renounced this title when he opted to leave The Episcopal Church in January.

After hearing about an hour of arguments, Houck stated that he should have a decision as to the fate of the suit sometime in the next seven to ten days.

Joy Hunter, director of Communications for the Diocese of South Carolina, told The Christian Post that Lawrence argued for the suit to be dismissed. “In his Motion, Bishop Lawrence asked that Judge Houck either dismiss the federal lawsuit, or stay it until the pending state court litigation is resolved,” said Hunter.

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Beth Glover was a juror on the trial of former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre. When the lawyers were discussing the mortgages tied to the securities at the center of the case, Glover realized that, for all intents and purposes, they were talking about her mortgage.

“When they were looking at the subprime mortgage groupings, I think I would have been in one of those,” Glover told me. “I didn’t have as great as FICO score at that time.”

Glover’s an Episcopal priest. She says she saw the devastation the financial crisis caused to her parishioners. They lost homes and jobs. Church programs had to be cut for lack of funds.

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The Episcopal Church in Maryland celebrated the life of its 11th bishop with all the formality and ceremony of a cathedral funeral Saturday, while remembering a man known as a fierce champion for society’s outsiders.

“Bishop David Leighton knew the burden of being a shepherd,” said the Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, the current bishop. “He experienced many times the hatred, bitterness and rejection that comes with the office whenever he stood up for those whom society wanted to neglect, or keep outside of the power structures in the church.”

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Almost four years ago, the Spy took an interest in the special challenges facing the Episcopal Church. The Spy did so because those challenges highlighted in very local terms the social changes that faced the country at the time, including the blessing of same sex relationships and the relevancy of Christianity with a quickly growing secular population.

As a consequence of this interest, the Spy sponsored a forum in the fall of 2009 to discuss the state of the Church with the rectors of Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot Counties. As our coverage clearly shows, the Episcopal Church, at least locally, was still very much in transition….

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We fear being sued, finishing last, going broke; we fear the mole on the back, the new kid on the block, the sound of the clock as it ticks us closer to the grave. We sophisticate investment plans, create elaborate security systems, and legislate stronger military, yet we depend on mood altering drugs more than any other generation in history. Moreover, “ordinary children today are more fearful than psychiatric patients were in the 1950s.”

Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversize and rude, fear is unwilling to share the heart with happiness. Happiness complies and leaves. Do you ever see the two together? Can one be happy and afraid at the same time? Clear thinking and afraid? Confident and afraid? Merciful and afraid? No. Fear is the big bully in the high school hallway: brash, loud, and unproductive. For all the noise fear makes and room it takes, fear does little good.

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors.

Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?

Imagine your life wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, absent the dread of failure, rejection, and calamity. Can you imagine a life with no fear? This is the possibility behind Jesus’ question.

“Why are you afraid?” he asks (Matt. 8:26 ncv).

–Max Luxado, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear (Thomas Nelson, 2009), pp.5-6 ; quoted by yours truly in the morning sermon

As student Gerald Addison read the story last fall preparing for an assignment, however, his mind churned with questions unanswered in the text.

So, he tracked down [Lt. Col. Kevin] Jarrard.

“I needed more insight into events and people. And most of all, I needed to know Kevin Jarrard better,” Addison recalls. “I realized there was probably more to be learned about the Marine who was so intent on helping a child survive in a place where he could not be sure he himself would survive.”

Jarrard responded. The student and Marine commander struck up a friendship, trading emails and phone calls during the eight-week course last year. Now, they will meet in person when Jarrard comes to campus.

Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

Almighty God, only giver of all mercies, whose Son, Jesus Christ, has taught us how to pray aright: Save us, we beseech thee, from all presumption in our prayer, and grant unto us the grace of humility and contrition; that we may, sharing the vision of thine apostle Saint Paul, know that it is by the grace of God alone that we are what we are, and that we can do nothing but through the strengthening of thy Son, Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

–Euchologium Anglicanum

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

–Romans 15:13

Foreign-owned banks, mines, and businesses have heard that, to fulfill a campaign promise made by Mugabe, their assets may be seized and restructured into a majority national ownership arrangement.

Now it appears the considerable property of the Anglican church in Zimbabwe, though it is mostly a black membership, may also be under renewed scrutiny by the unscrupulous.

The chief Anglican bishop in Zimbabwe, Chad Gandiya, this week accused a renegade clergyman and friend of Mugabe of restarting a campaign using brutality, the courts, and police to seize churches, orphanages, and missions owned by mainstream Anglicans.

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SEVERSON: For 12 agonizing years Kathleen was looking for an answer and recently got one from Dr. Ian Krantz at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who had sequenced [her son] Liam’s genome.

post01-genome-sequencing

DR. IAN KRANTZ (Medical Geneticist, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) And we not only found an answer in him, but we found the same answer in a number of other children, and we have a new diagnosis. We are understanding it, how to treat it better.

SEVERSON: The discovery of Liam’s genetic defect underscores how rapidly and how important the science of sequencing the human genome has become in modern medicine, especially when it comes to children. When researchers first mapped the human genome, it took almost 10 years and cost $3 billion. That was less than 10 years ago. Today the process takes three weeks, and the price tag is rapidly approaching $1,000.

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Every night at dusk, the streets of this desert town near the Israeli border empty out, and the chatter and thump of gunfire and explosives begin. Morning reveals the results: another dead soldier, another police checkpoint riddled with bullets, another kidnapping. In mid-July, the body of a local Christian shop owner was found near the town cemetery, his head severed, his torso in chains.

The northern Sinai Peninsula, long a relatively lawless zone, has become a dark harbinger of what could follow elsewhere in Egypt if the interim government cannot peacefully resolve its standoff with the Islamist protesters camped out in Cairo.

In the five weeks since Egypt’s military ousted the Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, the endemic violence here has spiraled into something like an insurgency, with mysterious gunmen attacking military and police facilities every night.

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Check them out.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah announced a $100 million gift for a U.N. counterterrorism center, declaring that religious extremism in the wake of the Arab Spring posed a greater danger to the Arab community at large “than the weapons of our visible enemies.”

The urgent tone of the king’s warning, in a statement Wednesday night marking the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, emphasized the continuing concerns by the world’s leading oil producer over security in the aftermath of revolutions that started in late 2010 elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

Saudi Arabia has arguably emerged from the popular uprisings as the region’s most influential political power, and as the most active opponent of Islamically oriented political movements and Islamically driven armed groups. Critics charge that the kingdom also often cracks down on rights activists at home, efforts the government has said are in the name of fighting terror.

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Bishop Paul V. Marshall of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem began a sabbatical Aug. 1 that will lead to his retirement on Jan. 1, 2014, from a position he has held for 17 years.

Marshall, 66, said he is retiring for reasons of advanced age.

At the beginning of the month, he turned over ecclesiastical authority to the diocese’s standing committee, which consists of five lay and five ordained members. The Rev. Canon Andrew T. Gerns of Trinity Episcopal Church in Easton is president of the committee.

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Malaysia is clamping down on Shi’ism, the second branch of Islamic orthodoxy, in a move that appears to have both religious and political overtones.

The nationwide crackdown began last month with the ban of local Shi’ite group Pertubuhan Syiah Malaysia. The same month, state governments gazetted a 1996 fatwa issued by the National Fatwa Council that declared Shi’ism deviant and therefore haram or impermissible.

There is also a witch hunt that has been going on for Shi’ite believers in four universities in Selangor and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, as well as in the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).

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In truth, the connection between SouthLake and Roosevelt very much fit into a plan. It was a plan devised by an especially odd couple ”” Sam Adams, the first openly gay mayor of Portland, and Kevin Palau, the scion of an evangelical association created by his father, Luis. And their plan has delivered thousands of evangelical volunteers not only to Roosevelt, but also to scores of other public schools in the area and to public agencies dealing with homelessness and foster care.

The Portland model, as it might be called, has brought its two founders inquiries from about 50 other cities and hundreds of churches across the country. While avoiding the tripwire of church-state separation, the program here has addressed two needs: that of urban mayors coping with static or falling budgets for public services, and that of a young generation of evangelical Christians drawn to the cause of social justice.

“Young evangelicals absolutely want their faith to be relevant,” said Mr. Palau, who is 50. “The world they grew up in and got tired of was the media portrait of evangelicals are against you, or evangelicals even hate you. Young evangelicals are saying, ”˜Surely we want to be known by what we’re for.’ ”

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An aging population and the associated end-of-life challenges have combined to keep assisted suicide at the center of the nation’s moral concerns. But few other debates so sharply divide the public as the question of whether or when to end the life of someone who is dying or suffering.

In May 2013, Vermont became the fourth state to allow assisted suicide, and right-to-die laws have been under consideration recently in several other states.

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St. Pierre’s Episcopal Church, near Bayou Pierre in Gautier, has a colorful history. Built in 1921, the church was the brain child of the Rev. Theodore DuBose Bratton, who served as the third bishop of Mississippi.

Bratton had a summer home near Oldfields in Gautier.

In 1921, Gautier was a simple railroad community with no church. St. Pierre’s became a community project as more and more people jumped on the bandwagon to help get the fledgling church built. Rev. John Chipman, vicar of St. John’s in Pascagoula, drew up the plans, and his son carved the date on the cornerstone, Nov. 12, 1921.

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Bishop Bruce Caldwell, who leads St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, said the church set up a booth in Loring Park during the Pride Festival in June advertising that it would perform gay weddings. So far, about eight same-sex weddings are scheduled at the church, he said.

“These folks really do want to get married and commit their lives to one another in a faithful union before God,” Caldwell said.

John Green, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio who has written extensively about politics and religion, said churches that recognize same-sex unions will adapt as time goes on.

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Amid persistent criticism that the U.S. marginalizes religion and religious people in its foreign policy, Secretary of State John Kerry Aug. 7 tapped ethicist and campaign adviser Shaun Casey to lead the State Department’s new Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives.

Casey is a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington and advised President Obama’s campaign and other Democrats on outreach to religious voters.

Kerry praised Casey as someone who understands how the U.S. can engage religious communities around the world to foster peace and development.

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With falling birthrates and rising life expectancies, the U.S. population is rapidly aging. By 2050, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections, one-in-five Americans will be 65 or older, and at least 400,000 will be 100 or older.1 Some futurists think even more radical changes are coming, including medical treatments that could slow, stop or reverse the aging process and allow humans to remain healthy and productive to the age of 120 or more. The possibility that extraordinary life spans could become ordinary life spans no longer seems far-fetched. A recent issue of National Geographic magazine, for example, carried a picture of a baby on its cover with the headline: “This Baby Will Live To Be 120.”

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Almighty God, who didst call thy deacon Laurence to serve thee with deeds of love, and didst give him the crown of martyrdom: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, following his example, may fulfil thy commandments by defending and supporting the poor, and by loving thee with all our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

We give thee hearty thanks, O heavenly Father, for the rest of the past night, and for the gift of a new day, with its opportunities of pleasing thee. Grant that we may so pass its hours in the perfect freedom of thy service, that at eventide we may again give thanks unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Daybreak Office of the Eastern Church

On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.

–Psalm 87:1-3

…why does this corrected dating matter? First of all, it validates McGrath’s conclusions in C. S. Lewis: A Life about the actual dating of Lewis’s conversion to Theism. Secondly, it shows us how easily mistakes can arise, especially regarding dates. Sometimes, Lewis was wrong.

And if nothing else, this bit of chronological detective work issues a fairly clear call for increased precision and depth in the scholarship on Lewis, all the more so at a time when his star continues to rise.

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On August 8, U.S. District Court Judge Weston C. Houck heard arguments on Bishop Lawrence’s motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by Bishop Charles vonRosenberg….

Judge Houck indicated that he hopes to rule on the motion shortly. He may dismiss the case, stay it or allow it to move forward in federal court.

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A ream of recent scientific research has given the faithful reason to rejoice: Belief is good for you.

Consider a study of nearly two million Twitter messages sent by prominent Christians and atheists, published in June in the journal Social Psychological & Personality Science. It found that Christians were more content, if not happier. The authors came to this conclusion by analyzing the language tweeters used: Christian tweeters used positive words more often than atheists, and negative words less often.

In 2012, researchers led by a group at Yeshiva University analyzed the health outcomes of more than 90,000 women over an eight-year period and found that those who frequently attended religious services were 56% more likely than non-attending women to report high rates of optimism, and 27% less likely to report depression. Other studies of the same group found a 20% lower mortality rate.

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Sydney’s first new Anglican Archbishop in more than a decade says he will use the role to lobby the Federal Government to treat asylum seekers with more dignity and humanity.

Bishop Glenn Davies was elected as the Anglican Church’s 12th Archbishop of Sydney last night by the church’s synod, or governing body.

The synod is make up of 800 members from 280 churches around the diocese.

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