While Malala’s courage in defying the Taliban’s barbarism won her the admiration of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, her Pakistani detractors’ criticism reflects the national malaise that young Malala has committed herself to fight. Hundreds of young Pakistanis, most of them supporters of cricket icon Imran Khan, have started the #MalalaDrama hashtag on Twitter to describe Malala as a tool of the evil West who is seeking to impose Western values on Islamic Pakistan. A few on Twitter even called for her to be charged with blasphemy, the catch-all accusation frequently used in Pakistan against those advocating anything but the most primitive ideas. Luckily, she now lives in Birmingham, England, after having come to Britain for medical treatment for her head wound.

Malala began documenting life under the Taliban in 2009, after they took control in the Swat Valley of northwestern Pakistan and then tried to shut down her school. The Taliban and their Islamist supporters oppose education for girls, and their concept of education for boys is far from enlightened. A young village girl with little outside exposure, Malala wished to connect to the rest of the world. She says she was inspired by the Pakistani Benazir Bhutto, who became the Muslim world’s first woman prime minister and was killed in 2007 by terrorists for challenging their ideas.

By rejecting the Taliban’s version of Islam””which was being brutally imposed by force of arms””Malala showed greater foresight than many of Pakistan’s politicians, generals and public intellectuals who have gradually ceded space to extremist Islamists. She didn’t buy into the propaganda description of the Taliban as a nationalist reaction to U.S. dominance or Indian influence, recognizing them as a menace that would set the country back several centuries.

Read it all from the WSJ.

I happened to come across these this week, and I haven’t seen them since 1990 when we first caught them on boxing Day in England (really). French with english subtitles, beautifully filmed, and, perhaps most notably, full of Christian themes–KSH.

The renowned evangelical speaker the Rev Dr John Stott called for Christians to continue to strive for ”˜Christ-likeness’ during his final major address before retiring from public ministry.

Speaking at the annual Keswick Convention, the 87-year-old former chaplain to the Queen told the audience that ”˜Christ-likeness is the will of God for the people of God’.

He warned his audience that being Christ like in ”˜patient endurance’ may become ”˜increasingly relevant as persecution increases in many cultures’, and highlighted the importance of the incarnation for Christians.

Read it all.

Holy God, no one is excluded from thy love; and thy truth transformeth the minds of all who seek thee: As thy servant Philip was led to embrace the fullness of thy salvation and to bring the stranger to Baptism, so grant unto us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel, proclaiming thy love in Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Teach us, O gracious Lord, to begin our works with fear, to go on with obedience, and to finish them in love, and then to wait patiently in hope, and with cheerful confidence to look up to thee, whose promises are faithful and rewards infinite; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–[one time rector of St Ebbes, Oxford] George Hickes

By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?

–Psalm 137:1-4

I am still elated from yesterday’s investiture of the second Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, the Right Rev. Dr. Foley Thomas Beach. It is always a joy at these gatherings of our Church to see so many old friends from across North America”“ it really does have the joy of a family reunion. I was so blessed to see the number of archbishops, bishops, clergy, laity and friends from all across the Anglican Communion with us (at substantial cost, I might add!) simply to rejoice with us in this milestone in the growth of our Anglican Church, and to reaffirm our communion with them and the vast majority of practicing Anglicans across the globe.

Here are just some of the high points for me:

”“The Communion anthem by the combined choirs on the Holy Spirit”“ it lifted me out of my seat and into the throne room of the Lord in worship, reminding me of our continuing need for a new Pentecost

”“ The presence of youth and adults, Americans, Canadians, Burmese, Nigerians (a Nigerian female deacon read the Gospel), all highlighting Archbishop ++Foley’s observation that we are indeed a “diverse lot”

”“ The greetings brought from The Rev. Preb. Charles Marnham, St Mark’s Chester Square London, on behalf of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the Church of England Evangelical Council, Church Society, Reform, and the Anglican Mission in England”“ with the heartfelt reminder that we should never forgot “how many friends we have in the Church of England.”

But especially the Primates gathering around our new Archbishop, laying hands on him and praying together out loud the blessing, and adding in this significant sentence NOT in the original worship bulletin:

“Foley Beach, We receive you as an Archbishop and a Primate in the Anglican Communion.”

That they went out of their way, together, to pray this before the gathered people of God is a clear reaffirmation of the Primates’ authority to decide who is Anglican, and their confirmation of our Anglican identity on behalf of the vast majority of practicing Anglicans within the Communion.

Whether or not the Archbishop of Canterbury respects this, we will move on with the distinct mission to which our new Archbishop has called us”“ to be a repenting, reconciling, reproducing and relentlessly compassionate Anglican Church reaching North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ!

Read it all

…At the close of the prayer of investitute of the Most Rev. Foley Beach at the Church of the Apostles on 9 Oct 2014, the primates of Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Myanmar, Jerusalem and the Middle East and South America, and bishops representing the primates of the Congo, Sudan and South East Asia laid hands on Archbishop Beach. Giving him their primatial blessing, they also acknowledged him by word and through laying on of hands to be a fellow primate of the Anglican Communion.

The archbishops’ act comes one week after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told the Church of Ireland Gazette the ACNA was an ecumenical partner of the Anglican Communion..
…….
Since 2008 the GAFCON primates have affirmed their fellowship with the ACNA. Last night saw primates of the Global South Coalition — conservative church leaders outside the Gafcon movement and seen as closer to Canterbury — join their African colleagues in validating publically the ACNA’s Anglican credentials.

The signficance of the statement, said one highly placed source who asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to speak for his peers, was that the 10 churches had made their positions quite clear to Archbishop Welby. If, as he told the BBC last Sunday, he would be guided by the mind of the primates in deciding issues of Anglican ecclesiology (such as the time of the primates meeting and structure and timing of the Lambeth Conferences), then he must now know that archbishops representing the majority of Anglicans worshipping today were in solidarity with the ACNA — and citing Daniel 6:15 said there was no turning back. (“Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.”)

Read it all

I admire Isabel Sawhill deeply, but I respectfully disagree with this recommendation.

First, American marriage isn’t disappearing, it’s fracturing along class lines. In upscale America ”” about one-third of the society ”” marriage is thriving. Most people marry, few children (fewer than 10 percent) are born to unmarried mothers, and most children grow up through age 18 living with their two married parents. Among the more privileged, then, marriage clearly functions as a wealth-producing arrangement, a source of happiness over time, and a benefit to children.

Indeed, scholars today increasingly identify America’s marriage gap ”” in which the affluent reap the benefits of marriage while the non-affluent increasingly do not ”” as an important driver of rising American inequality. Wouldn’t it be odd, and sad, if American elites, at the very moment in which the role of marriage as both an indicator and producer of high status in their own lives is crystal clear, decided to throw up their hands in resignation when it comes to marriage in the rest of the society?

Second, changing what we support from “marriage” (a social institution) to “responsible parenthood” (a piece of advice) means downplaying the role of society and putting all responsibility on the individual.

Read it all.

#ISIS blows up "Church of Resurrection" in #Assyrian city of Baghdida (Qaraqosh) in #Nineveh #Iraq Source: Ishtar TV pic.twitter.com/qlknOPAqGE

— Eshu Polis (@EshuAssyrian3) October 10, 2014

Most of the tutors, not all of whom are church members, have just finished a full day at work. “We never start by just opening the books,” said Jon Findley, a bank data-base manager who has been volunteering for 24 years. “These kids bring their day with them. So you listen. It’s important that they know someone wants to hear about their lives. I don’t want to be another person who lets them down.”

Since the program started in 1964””one night a week, that first year, in the church basement””more than 6,000 children have been taught. Now tutoring is available four nights a week. The children who journey downtown from some of the city’s bleakest, most dangerous neighborhoods could be excused for complaining about the hand life has dealt them. But complaining is easy; working to better oneself is hard. The volunteers could be excused””even commended””if they chose only to give money to charities instead. But writing a check is easy; being the person who does something””the one who shows up””is hard.

The rewards, though, are lasting. Tamatha Webster’s daughter no longer has to struggle to learn in chaotic classrooms. She has been a faithful attendee on tutoring nights for seven years now, and because of her intelligence and diligent work has been awarded a scholarship to one of Chicago’s finest private schools.

Read it all.

Las Vegas is such an impossible, unlikely place, a neon metropolis in the middle of the desert. Equally marvelous and unlikely is the technology that allows me to safely retrieve and freeze my eggs for future use, without a single incision. Because egg freezing only recently lost its “experimental” status and the success rates are not as well known as with embryo freezing, I decided to keep my options open and freeze both eggs and embryos. It feels a little bit like I’m living in a science fiction novel.

Now, a few months post-retrieval, I wonder when and how I will decide to use the eggs I’ve just nourished, protected, collected, and frozen. It’s possible I’ll meet someone and have children the traditional way. It’s possible I’ll marry in time for one child, but need to return to my frozen eggs for a second one. It’s possible I’ll decide to be a single mother, the way my mother was for many years. It’s possible I’ll adopt or decide not to have children at all, and be equally happy. But if I do have a daughter or son some day from the eggs I retrieved, I look forward to telling my child about the unexpected summer night in Vegas when it all started.

Read it all.

“If there’s one thing that is essential in ministry it’s knowing that you are in the hands of, and that you belong to, God Himself. That He’s chosen you, that He’s called you, that you are precious to God.”

With these powerful words the Archbishop of Canterbury began his address to the Trinity College community at the start of their new term, speaking to a packed chapel of women and men heading towards leadership in the Church of England.

His message followed the theme of Isaiah 44, where God reaffirms Israel’s chosen status and reminds them that the One they belong to is more powerful than the mess they’re in, and so commands them not to be afraid.

Read it all and you can watch the whole Youtube video (about 12 1/2 minutes).

No same sex weddings are on the immediate horizon in South Carolina, as the state’s top court ruled Thursday that its 46 probate court judges may not issue marriage licenses to such couples until a federal case is settled.

The S.C. Supreme Court’s ruling came one day after Charleston County Probate Judge Irvin Condon said he would issue licenses to same sex couples in the wake of Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision not to review a case overturning Virginia’s gay marriage ban.

Condon indicated Thursday he would abide by the top state court’s ruling.

Read it all.

The Revd Canon Dr John Gibaut has been appointed to succeed the Revd Canon Dr Alyson Barnett-Cowan in March as Director for Unity, Faith and Order of the Anglican Communion.

Canon Gibaut is currently the Director of the World Council of Churches’ Commission on Faith and Order based in Geneva Switzerland. Faith and Order is the theological commission that resolves issues of Christian disunity, and promotes a vision of the Church as a communion of unity in diversty.

Read it all from ACNS.

Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their work for children’s rights.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the two “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

Malala, 17, is the youngest ever winner of a Nobel Prize. A schoolgirl and education campaigner in Pakistan, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman two years ago. She.

Satyarthi, 60, has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, “focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain,” the Nobel committee said.

Read it all.

Albert and Winnie Sami gave nearly $5 million to Zoo Miami on the condition that they remain anonymous until after their deaths.

Read it all.

Pope Francis has communicated his personal greetings and blessings for the new ministry of the Most Rev. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America [ACNA].

Speaking to the congregation of over 1500 gathered at the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta on 9 Oct 2014 for the installation of Archbishop Beach as leader of the ACNA, the Anglican Bishop of Argentina, the Rt. Rev. Gregory Venables stated that he had received a telephone call last week from “Fr Jorge”, the former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio — now Pope Francis. Bishop Venables noted that he had long had a warm personal relationship with Pope Francis from his days as leader of the Argentine Catholic Church, and added Anglicans should rejoice in the current occupant of the chair of St Peter as he was a “Bible-believing, born again Christian.”

Read it all.

Weird and wonderful bookshops worldwide ”“ in pictures http://t.co/yfCzb2bQOU Is your favourite missing? Share it here pic.twitter.com/9A9e0CdVK4

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) October 10, 2014

In essence, [Justin] Welby’s comments have re-stirred a critical question: Is being Anglican about being in communion with Caterbury, or is it about holding certain shared theological views?

Wood noted that Welby also said in the interview, “There is no Anglican Pope,” and that “decisions are made collectively and collegially.”

“The status of the ACNA within the Anglican Communion would, by extension of the same logic, be dependent upon the decisions of the primates and not solely upon the personal opinion Archbishop Justin,” [Steve] Wood said.

Read it all.

Church of England clergy are overwhelmingly committed to the parish system, despite the challenges it poses, a new survey by YouGov suggests.

This is one of the clearest findings to come out of new research devised by the team behind last year’s Westminster Faith Debates.

The survey asked 1500 Anglican clergy, chosen at random…how important the parish system was to them: 83 per cent said important, 12 per cent said not important, and five per cent held no strong view.

The only other of the 29 questions asked that generated such unanimity, regardless of church tradition, concerned the nature of God: 83 per cent believed in a personal God; nine per cent answered: “No one can know what God is like.”

Read it all.

What is the kind of Church that He wants us to be? I’m sure there are many things we could say in answer to this question, but I am going to have the audacity to use an historic term to help us move forward together in the power of the Holy Spirit, as we seek to make the Father famous, and glorify Jesus Christ.

I will call these the “Four Marks of Continuing a Spirit-filled Movement” or rather “Four Marks of Modern Anglicanism.”

Read it all.

O God, our Father, we are exceedingly frail, and indisposed to every virtuous and gallant undertaking: Strengthen our weakness, we beseech thee, that we may do valiantly in this spiritual war; help us against our own negligence and cowardice, and defend us from the treachery of our unfaithful hearts; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Saint Augustine

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence.

–Psalm 140:13

Liberalism seems to have an irrational animus against Christianity. Consider these two stories highlighted in the last week by conservative Christian blogger Rod Dreher.

Item 1: In a widely discussed essay in Slate, author Brian Palmer writes about the prevalence of missionary doctors and nurses in Africa and their crucial role in treating those suffering from Ebola. Palmer tries to be fair-minded, but he nonetheless expresses “ambivalence,” “suspicion,” and “visceral discomfort” about the fact that these men and women are motivated to make “long-term commitments to address the health problems of poor Africans,” to “risk their lives,” and to accept poor compensation (and sometimes none at all) because of their Christian faith.

The question is why he considers this a problem.

Palmer mentions a lack of data and an absence of regulatory oversight. But he’s honest enough to admit that these aren’t the real reasons for his concern. The real reason is that he doesn’t believe that missionaries are capable “of separating their religious work from their medical work,” even when they vow not to proselytize their patients. And that, in his view, is unacceptable ”” apparently because he’s an atheist and religion creeps him out. As he puts it, rather wanly, “It’s great that these people are doing God’s work, but do they have to talk about Him so much?”

Read it all and make sure to read the Rod Dreher article and the Slate article mentioned.

In Detroit, a group of Catholics borrowed the idea of flash mobs for “Mass mobs” to help revitalize urban churches.

Every month, a group called Detroit Mass Mobs picks a church, spreads the word on Facebook ”” and just like that, it fills up and buzzes with the energy it once had.

St. Florian Catholic church is an eight-story, red-brick church built in 1908 by the Polish families who flocked here to work for Dodge, Ford and Packard. It seats 1,500 people, but normally only about 200 people attend noon Mass. On a recent Sunday, Thom Mann, an organizer with Detroit Mass Mob who’s not a regular at St. Florian, had to get here early because, he says, “there’ll be standing room only.”

“People are upset that the churches are closing, but the simple reason is, people don’t go,” Mann says.

Read it all.

In what ways did St. Francis revolutionize and transform the Church?

Six””detailed in my book: through a high view of friendship, by embracing the other, through personal poverty, by developing a new spirituality, through gentleness and care for creatures, and by embracing death.

For many of us, a favorite image of St. Francis is that of him delivering a spirited sermon to the birds. Did that really happen, and why did that particular story become so central to his legacy?

Sure, it happened, but it wasn’t cute. Our iconography has made it seem just cute””you know? Instead, as with many of the iconic moments in his life, it happened at a time of personal crisis and uncertainty.

Read it all.

The more you know about the organ, the more you can appreciate it,” said Mark Child, organist at Grace Episcopal Church in Windsor. “This is Organ 101.”

Child gave a special concert and presentation about the church’s new organ, a Hauptwerk Virtual Pipe Organ, on Saturday, Oct. 4. The old pipe organ broke and needs to be fixed, but the church is low on funds and the roof needs to be repaired.

The new device does not have actual pipes, but uses digitized recordings of a pipe organ. Child has loaded the tones of two different organs, one German and one French, to create different kinds of sounds. He used works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Gottfried Walther, Louis-Nicolas Clerambault and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to illustrate the differences.

Read it all.

The Church of England is on its “last chance” and must make some hard decisions about clergy and parishes if it is to have a future, according to a leading academic.

Linda Woodhead, professor in sociology of religion at Lancaster University, said: “What my and other people’s research shows is that people of my age are the last generation who in large numbers care about the Church of England.”

Prof Woodhead, aged 50, told Christian Today: “I am of the very last generation that has any interest in investing in the Church and to think about its future.” She doubted that the Church would die out completely, but warned it was in danger of shrinking into small enclaves dominated by the white middle classes.

Read it all.

I doubt anyone in the Church of England who knows Rev. Stephen Sizer was surprised that he would attend a conference critical of Israel. Sizer, the Vicar of Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey, is an outspoken critic of what he calls Christian Zionism, that is, Christian support for the nation-state of Israel on theological grounds.

What is surprising is that a vicar of the Church of England would attend a conference in Iran to speak to a group of anti-Semites on the subject of the Zionist lobby in England. Other attendees of the New Horizon conference in Tehran include a long list of Holocaust deniers and 9/11 truthers. The conference included a panel discussion called “Mossad’s Role in the 9/11 Coup d’Etat” with the subheading “9/11 and the Holocaust as pro-Zionist ”˜Public Myths.’”

Read it all.