Here in Africa’s most populous country, where an insurgency by the brutal Islamist group Boko Haram has killed hundreds of people in recent months, it is easy to despair over sectarian strife between Muslims and Christians ”“ and between Muslims.

Yes, easy to despair, were it not for the remarkable example set by an imam and pastor in Nigeria, an oil-producing country on the West African coast whose population is evenly split between Muslims and Christians. The two men are former militia leaders whose forces directly fought each other, yet they reconciled after each was moved by a sermon on forgiveness ”“ one preached in a mosque, and one in a church. They have been spreading the practice of tolerance and reconciliation for nearly two decades since forming the Interfaith Mediation Center here in Kaduna, in northern Nigeria, where I train staff in dialogue techniques that bridge divides of ethnicity and religion.

Read it all.

As the drafting committee entrusted with creating Egypt’s new constitution, which is to be put to a national referendum next month, races against time to conclude its final product, concern runs high in most rights quarters about what the expected bill would bear for civil, political and other liberties.

Despite the active engagement of the Coptic church in the committee, representing the vast majority of Egyptian Christians, serious concerns remain in numerous Coptic quarters about the new bill’s ability to attend to the grave citizenship issues that have plagued them in past decades ”“ not least of which those added during the Muslim Brotherhood’s one-year rule and its now suspended 2013 constitution, on whose drafting committee the liberal forces and representatives of the Coptic church had walked out.

“We are concerned, and for a very simple reason: in its entirety, the text of the proposed constitution ”“ as we have been able to figure out depending on the access we have to the committee’s work ”“ is not at all successful in eliminating the key causes for compromised citizenship rights that Copts, and Christians in general, have been facing,” said Coptic activist Marceiliano Youssef, a member of the Maspero Youth Union and the Egyptian Centre for Human Rights.

Read it all.

Harold Jellicoe Percival died aged 99 without close friends or relatives at hand at a nursing home, where staff worried no one would be at his funeral to mark his passing.

But after a public appeal in The Gazette and on social networks for the Second World War veteran, roads were blocked with traffic and the crematorium unable to hold the numbers of mourners at his funeral, poignantly beginning at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

As millions marked Armistice Day across the world, members of the public, old soldiers and serving servicemen and women, stood in silence for the arrival of Mr Percival’s funeral cortege at the crematorium in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, in keeping with the Ode of Remembrance, “We will remember them”.

Read it all from the Blackpool Gazette (and the video is very moving).

Bishop of Enugu North Diocese, Anglican Communion, Rt Rev Sosthenes Eze has warned that Nigeria may be thrown into anarchy leading to disintegration if nothing is done now to stem the many crises the country is facing.

Bishop Eze who gave this warning yesterday during the first session of the Second Synod of the Diocese which held at St. Luke’sAnglican Church, Okpatu, Enugu North decried the awkward state of the nation.

He said that unless Christians and indeed all Nigerians turn to seek the face of God, the nation would surely slide into anarchy that would tear it apart.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Anyone who has listened to much Bruce Springsteen has surely noticed the singer’s fondness for biblical allusions in his lyrics. Now Rutgers University is making a study of them.

The college in New Brunswick, N.J., will be offering a freshman seminar examining the theology of Springsteen, according to a Q&A on the Rutgers Today PR site with Azzan Yadin-Israel, the course professor. The class will cover Springsteen’s entire discography, from 1973’s “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” to last year’s “Wrecking Ball.”

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has sent a message of prayer and solidarity to all those affected by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

‘We are deeply shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of thousands of lives and of the suffering of millions’ caused by the storm, Archbishop Justin Welby said today.

‘Our prayers are with all those who are traumatised by the disaster and in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical attention.’

Read it all.

For members of St. Michaels (Charleston, S.C.), there is a rare treat in store”¦ Peter will be attending a book signing as part of the release of his latest book From Dry Bones: Reflections on an Unpredictable Life. In his new memoir, Peter takes us behind the scenes of his life””a life of tireless work for the Lord, filled with twists and turns, and a resume of Christ-focused efforts that can be attributed only to a man filled (and energized) by the Holy Spirit. – See more at: http://www.stmichaelschurch.net/peter-moores-new-book-special-book-signing-sunday-november-17th/#sthash.dd99qK3m.dpuf

Read it all.

Apparently this has been in the works for a year, without my knowledge (but with everyone else in the family in on it). He was sprung on me as a surprise this past Saturday. I am still recovering. 7 weeks old, his name comes from the Hebrew word for comfort which may be found, for example, in Isaiah 40–KSH.

A church minister has been left with a broken jaw after going to the aid of a pizza delivery driver who was robbed in Sydney.

Up to six men attacked the 17-year-old driver while he was making a delivery at Naremburn on Sydney’s north shore on Saturday night, police say.

Some of the teenage attackers managed to flee with the pizzas and started walking south on Willoughby Road.

Read it all.

As authorities in this typhoon-ravaged nation struggled Tuesday with a mammoth relief effort, survivors were becoming increasingly desperate, short on food and supplies and terrified about waiting longer for help.

A few residents of hard-hit areas scrawled signs with a simple message: “Help us.”

About five days after the once-in-a-century winds of Typhoon Haiyan gashed the central Philippines, some aid workers said progress has been too slow. Many who want to help are waiting at airports and air bases, hoping to catch rides from the short-handed Philippine military.

Read it all.

Children are facing a health “time bomb” of neck and back pain relating to the use of computers and smartphones, health experts have warned.

More than two thirds of primary school children have reported experiencing back or neck pain over the course of one year, according to research.

The number of children receiving treatment for back or neck pain has doubled in the past six months researchers at Swansea University claim.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Glenn Davies, has announced that a church planter, with experience in Australia and overseas, is to be the next Bishop of North Sydney.

The Rev Chris Edwards was the founding minister of Holy Trinity Adelaide Hills, in South Australia, which grew more than tenfold under his leadership. He later led St Paul’s Anglican Church, Tervuren, Belgium and was chairman of its school.

He is 52 years old.

Read it all.

So how widespread is anti-Christian violence?

“Credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that every year an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are killed because of some relation to their faith,” Vatican spokesman Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi announced in a radio address to the United Nations Human Rights Council in May….

Read it all.

Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Leonine Sacramentary

I do not turn aside from thy ordinances,
for thou hast taught me.
How sweet are thy words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through thy precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.
Thy word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.

–Psalm 119:102-105

A Catholic family in Madison that owns a vehicle lighting manufacturing company won an important religious liberty victory in a Nov. 8 ruling handed down by a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Judge Diane Sykes, writing the majority opinion in the 2-1 decision, said that members of the Grote family and Grote Industries, which they own, cannot be compelled to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraceptives to their employees in their company health plan as required under the Affordable Care Act.

The suit challenged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate in the health care law that requires most employers to provide such coverage even if they have moral objections to it.

Read it all.

From here:

The essays in The Future of Biblical Interpretation originated in a conference held in honor of Anthony C. Thiselton, who is well known for his important work in hermeneutics and New Testament interpretation. After an opening essay by Thiselton on “The Future of Biblical Interpretation and Responsible Plurality in Hermeneutics,” the contributors look at the issues from a variety of angles””theological, scriptural, kerygmatic, historical, critical, ecclesial and relational. The result is an engaging conversation exploring responsible and productive interpretation of the Bible. A must-read for anyone seriously engaged in biblical scholarship today.

Read the rest, and you just have to love the subtitle.

But if they campaign for a reform that frees them, and “first-class minds” like them, to take drugs, they are also campaigning for a reform that frees everyone else. That means it frees – or withdraws protection from – the beaten and rejected child of a shattered home on the squalid estate, the school failure, the unemployable young man in the post-industrial desert, the young mother living on benefits and, eventually, her children. And they are campaigning, in effect, for more people to use drugs which can, quite capriciously and unpredictably, destroy their users’ mental health. So for their own convenience and peace of mind, they are willing to condemn unknown numbers of others to possible disaster. This can hardly be called a selfless action.

Finally, we are not islands. If we risk destroying ourselves (as I believe we do if we use drugs) then we risk gravely wounding those who love us and care for us. For me this is a profound individual contract. It is one that will be understood most readily by the parents of adolescent children, children who have a sort of independence but often lack the experience to use it aright. If the law makes light of those parents’ concerns, and refuses to support them, what argument can they use to dissuade their young from taking a path that might well lead to permanent self-destruction?

My case will I think be readily understood by the parents of children who are already destroying themselves with drugs of any kind.

Read it all.

VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE HERE
You may find the link here and you can see it on the calendar here.

This is NOT the Archbishop’s original topic it has been changed at his request. The event will be livestreamed if you want to listen at the link provided–KSH.

Please note the time of the event is 6:15, but the Archbishop is to speak at 7:00 p.m.

The Church of England has criticised the National Secular Society’s call for Christian ritual to have no role in the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph, dismissing the organisation as “rather sad”.

In the lead up to today’s commemoration service, Norman Bonney, a director of the National Secular Society, argued that the Cenotaph was created as a secular memorial and should be treated as such.

But the Church’s director of communications, Rev Arun Arora has hit back at Bonney’s proposal. He said: “It is both misjudged and misguided for the National Secular Society to attempt to politicise Remembrance Sunday for their own ends.”

Read it all.

While the Imam’s call to prayer sounded earlier just below my full consciousness, it was the buzzing of a thick-bodied Wood Boring Bee that finally awakened me and ushered me into the various morning sounds of Marsabit””bird songs, cock crows, the wind in the trees outside my window, a faint voice or two from the town in the distance, and the ringing of the church bell. Six o’clock. I get up and freshen myself, make a cup of instant coffee and say Morning Prayer in the quietness of the house. How I’ve missed this time alone with You, Lord, this past week [while at GAFCON].

Now after a pleasant breakfast with Bishop Rob, his wife, Sue, and Allison, I sit out on their porch enjoying the garden and the cool late morning breeze and scrawl a few sentences in this journal. A white breasted Pie Crow caws from a tall thin-leafed tree where I notice a nest in the upper branches and a slightly moving head of a mother bird apparently brooding over her eggs or young. Is this emblematic of Your Holy Spirit this morning brooding over us””I wonder? The red bougainvillea beside the yellow-green flax, the cane brake, and the purple and white Inpatients against the red earth might just as well be the Southwestern United States””but, “No”, I tell myself, “this is Northern Kenya” and the tall, colorfully beaded women I saw yesterday at worship in Archers Post Anglican Church, stunning in their vibrant song and dance; the six various tribes and tongues represented in the small yet crowded church; the young African children delighting in our presence and reaching out their hands to greet us””even laughing as Allison put her white arm parallel with their black ones; the long arduous drive on the dirt road, the Land Rover jostling us about for hours; the herds of sheep, cattle and camels we passed along the way with the young African boys shepherding them, and the occasional warrior in colorful fabrics and feathers, dramatic against their lean bare black shoulders and chests, walking in stately stride with their weapon of choice at their side; all somewhat dream-like in my memory, yet calling me back to gratitude and prayer.

Read it all.

…the crisis in the humanities is no more reducible to low enrollments in the humanities at a subset of schools than the 2008 economic crisis was reducible to the risky behavior of a few financial firms. Rather, the devaluing of the humanities — even if it is only at the “top” — is a symptom and cause of a crisis in our public sphere: a cultural recession.

Like our current economic one, this recession has not meted out punishment fairly. The Great Recession did not herald the end of haute couture and multimillion-dollar condos — even though consumer spending plummeted and the housing bubble burst. So too the cultural recession does not entail the end of our culture of letters and its institutions.

There still are, and will remain, elite institutions and publications, and hence kinds of discourse prerequisite for participation in various cultural and political spheres. And there are, and will remain, readers and writers willing and able to participate in them. But participation is no longer part and parcel of being an informed citizen. The requisite skills and a common knowledge base can no longer be taken for granted.

Read it all.

I do not often do this but regular blog readers know there is a lot going on in the diocese and I mean it when I say it is a heartfelt request–KSH.

You may find information about it here.

Bishop Mark J. Lawrence, the 14th Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina [was]… in North Myrtle Beach on Sunday, November 10 for the official launching of a new church.

Grace Parish is the newest congregation in the Diocese of South Carolina. Bishop Lawrence, will commission the church plant team and perform a service of confirmation at 3 p.m. at the J. Bryan Floyd Community Center at 1030 Possum Trot Road in North Myrtle Beach.

“We may be small,” says Vicar Linda Manuel, who leads the parish locally, “But our God is big, and we believe that small things done with great love will change the world!”

Read it all.

In closing, permit me to highlight three areas of Simeon’s ministry which have greatly challenged me in my reflections and which, if we were to follow them, would have the potential to rejuvenate our ministry.

1 Giving priority to an effective devotional lifestyle, with a commitment to spending ”˜quality’ time in Bible study and prayer.

2 A commitment to living a holy life, recognizing the need of the renewing and cleansing power of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

3 That, along with Simeon, our understanding of the purpose of our preaching would be: ”˜Sir, we would see Jesus’ (John 12:21).

Read it all.

England, of course, is the nation that once gave us preachers the likes of Charles Simeon, Charles Spurgeon, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Now, with the rare and blessed exception of some faithful evangelical churches, preaching has fallen on desperate times.

Some observers of British life now estimate that in any given week Muslim attendance at mosques outnumbers Christian attendance at churches. That means that there are probably now in Britain more people who listen to imams than to preachers.

This raises an interesting question: Is the marginalization of biblical preaching in so many churches a cause or a result of the nation’s retreat from Christianity? In truth, it must be both cause and effect. In any event, there is no hope for a recovery of biblical Christianity without a preceding recovery of biblical preaching. That means preaching that is expository, textual, evangelistic, and doctrinal. In other words, preaching that will take a lot longer than ten minutes and will not masquerade as a form of entertainment.

Read it all.

When Simeon moved to put benches in the aisles, the church wardens threw them out. He battled with discouragement and at one point wrote out his resignation.

“When I was an object of much contempt and derision in the university,” he later wrote, “I strolled forth one day, buffeted and afflicted, with my little Testament in my hand ”¦ The first text which caught my eye was this: ‘They found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; him they compelled to bear his cross.'”

Slowly the pews began to open up and fill, not primarily with townspeople but with students. Then Simeon did what was unthinkable at the time: he introduced an evening service. He invited students to his home on Sundays and Friday evening for “conversation parties” to teach them how to preach. By the time he died, it is estimated that one-third of all the Anglican ministers in the country had sat under his teaching at one time or another.

Read it all.

The agency of Satan in the affairs of man cannot be doubted by any one who really believes the representations given us in this inspired volume. His great employment from the very first has been to seduce men to sin.

—-Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae MCCLXXVI

He grew downward in humiliation before God, and he grew upward in his adoration of Christ.

Handley Moule captures the essence of Simeon’s secret of longevity in this sentence: “‘Before honor is humility,’ and he had been ‘growing downwards’ year by year under the stern discipline of difficulty met in the right way, the way of close and adoring communion with God” (Moule, 64). Those two things were the heartbeat of Simeon’s inner life: growing downward in humility and growing upward in adoring communion with God.

But the remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable. Simeon was utterly unlike most of us today who think that we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can. For him, adoration only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin. So he actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining corruption as a Christian.

I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time I had such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark, if I had not ballast at the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary size. (Moule 134f.)

He never lost sight of the need for the heavy ballast of his own humiliation. After he had been a Christian forty years he wrote,

With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God’s having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me (Ezekiel 16:63). . . . There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these forty years to behold; the one is my own vileness; and the other is, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: and I have always thought that they should be viewed together; just as Aaron confessed all the sins of all Israel whilst he put them on the head of the scapegoat. The disease did not keep him from applying to the remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to be, not only humbled and thankful, but humbled in thankfulness, before my God and Saviour continually. (Carus, 518f.)

Please do read it all.