Gracious Lord, we pray that your will would be done through this trial. 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.

It is by God’s grace we have come this far. It is his grace that will bring us home.
On Wednesday, September 23rd, at 10:30 a.m., the Diocese of South Carolina will enter into oral arguments before the South Carolina Supreme Court. The Court has agreed to hear TEC’s appeal of the trial court ruling in our favor that was announced by Judge Goodstein on February 3rd of this year. In that order, Judge Goodstein ruled that the Diocese and its parishes:

Ӣ Are the owners of their real, personal and intellectual property.
Ӣ TEC has no legal, beneficial or equitable interest in any of those properties.
Ӣ TEC and its officers and agents were permanently enjoined from using our names or symbols.
Ӣ All the TEC counterclaims in the trial were dismissed with prejudice.
Ӭ
It is our prayerful hope that the state Supreme Court justices will uphold this decision in its entirety….

Read it all.

They are the people with whom Roof was associating in the weeks before the shooting, and this is the place he drifted into with little resistance, an American void where little is sacred and little is profane and the dominant reaction to life is what Joey does now, looking at Lindsey. He shrugs.

For several weeks, Dylann Roof slept on the floor here. He played video games. According to the Meeks, he showed off his new Glock .45-caliber handgun, drank heavily and retreated to his car to listen to opera. And sometimes he confided in his childhood friend Joey, who wasn’t the type to ask questions.

When Roof showed up asking Joey for a place to stay, Joey says, he invited him in without hesitation. When Roof told him that he believed in segregation, Joey didn’t ask why. When Roof mentioned driving two hours to Charleston and visiting a church called Emanuel AME, he didn’t ask anything about it. When Roof said that he was going to “do something crazy,” as Joey remembers it, he and Lindsey hid Roof’s gun but then gave it back, blowing it all off as a drunken episode.

“I didn’t take him seriously,” is what Joey says again and again….

Read it all.

[Dale Kuehne writes]:

While today’s conversations push the boundaries of how we understand gender, they don’t understand that this brave new world of identity is about more than gender.

The students with whom I associate””from middle school to college students””have understood for several years that we now reside in a world beyond gender. The youngest of them probably don’t realize that TIME’s article announced anything “new.”

For many of them, gender discussions, even of the transgender variation, are just so yesterday. When we talk about personal identity, we don’t include the mundane questions about being male and/or female. A person can certainly identify as male or female if they wish, but there is little expectation that one would do so.

After all, today Facebook gives us over 50 “gender” identities to choose from. (Conversations about this can involve questions about why there are so few options.) And rather than looking to gender or variations on a gender, more and more young people are seeking to discover their identity by widening the options to include “otherkins” (people who consider themselves to have a non-human identity, such as various animals, spirits, mediums, and so on).

Read it all (my emphasis).

(Be forewarned–gruesome subject–KSH).

The 29-year-old said others forced her to sell sex for money from age 10 until 17, while she was in the foster care system. She recounted beatings, starvation, forced cocaine and heroin use and seeing the disappearance of other girls who stepped out of line with their traffickers.

The experience left her hooked on crack cocaine and dependent on turning tricks to feed her habit. Yet she still refers to herself as “one of the lucky ones.”

“I was caught and pulled out,” she said. “If it wasn’t for an officer here, I think I’d be dead today.”

This is the dark reality of sex trafficking in the Holy City and across South Carolina. Vulnerable children and young adults are forced to sell their bodies and held against their will, deprived of food and sleep and sometimes beaten until they meet a quota of men to service.

Read it all from the local paper.

Listen to it all.

Addressing newsmen at All Saints Anglican Church, Oshodi, Lagos to flag off the annual BSN Marathon Bible Reading programme, Ajiboye noted that the vices in the country revolve around unrighteousness and ungodliness and that the solutions given by God are embedded in the Scriptures.
He said: “Imagine what will happen if Nigerians read their Bible daily, imbibe biblical virtues and live according to the will of God; no doubt, God will be pleased with us because righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.
“Nigerians are the most religious people in the world but the challenge is that our actions are against the Word of God. There are Christians who can effectively quote the scripture more than the pastors but they do not act in accordance with the Word of God that they read.

Read it all.

Almighty God, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Set free thy servants from all anxious thoughts for the morrow; give us contentment with thy good gifts; and confirm our faith that according as we seek thy kingdom, thou wilt not suffer us to lack any good thing; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The earth is the LORD’s and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein; for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers.

–Psalm 24:1

From the Last Night at the Proms, the full recording of which may be listened to here. [The traditional end starts 2 1/2 hrs in]

The number of Catholic priests in Canada has fallen sharply in recent decades, so any ordination is a rare event.

But Friday’s example of the sacrament in Saint John was particularly unusual ”” because the new priest was surrounded by his wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Read it all.

I had put effort into figuring out who to be so that I could succeed as the host of a Sunday news show. But last year when I lost that job, which offered me satisfaction and a high profile, I had to find out who I was without cameras or prestigious titles. This hasn’t been rosy or easy, though I tried to leave NBC with grace, mostly as an example to my children.

It has been faith that steadied me. The humbling loss turned out to be a gift, because I have seen how many fresh opportunities for growth and happiness await””even if it hasn’t gone according to my plan. Most plainly, I understand: In joy, pain and even in personal failure, God is close.

Erica Brown wrote me a note on my last day in the job. She reminded me to trust God, quoting Isaiah 46:4. “I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

Read it all.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Europe rallied on Saturday to express sympathy toward migrants seeking refuge in the region amid the largest migration of displaced people since the end of World War II.

About 30,000 people converged in Copenhagen, according to city police, carrying banners such as “Refugees Welcome.” The rally, as well as smaller gatherings in other Danish cities, was calm and peaceful, police said.

In Hamburg, Germany, more than 24,000 people demonstrated against xenophobia and racism, said a spokeswoman for the city’s police. She said they were mostly peaceful but police briefly used water cannons after some stones and firecrackers were thrown.

Read it all.

Having monitored the Anglican news scene for so long, I am noticing a sea change. Some Anglican news outlets seem to be having trouble finding stories to report. There have been slow seasons in Anglican news before, and the period following the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention (which we are now in) is often one of those seasons.

But this time it is different, and I find myself questioning whether the Anglican news scene will ever be the same again. In July, I wrote a piece entitled, “Probably My Last Post about General Convention–Ever.” I felt safe in entitling it that because, not only has the Episcopal Church moved beyond my ability to care, it has moved beyond the ability to surprise. For something to be newsworthy, there has to be a certain “Man Bites Dog” element to it; and, frankly, we will never see that kind of newsworthiness from the Episcopal Church ever again.

Gay bishops–done that. Gay marriage–done that. Transgendered clergy–done that. Panentheist theology–now so much a part of the landscape that orthodoxy is virtually extinct. Episcopal Church tries to co-opt African churches with its money–entirely predictable. What is left to surprise us? Polyamory? Rewriting the Prayer Book for a gender-neutral or feminine God? These are just the next stops on the train ride

Read it all.

Louis van Gaal responded to another stagnant half of football decisively. Ashley Young brought thrust and threat to United’s attack, drew the foul from Nathaniel Clyne and Juan Mata provided the assist for Daley Blind’s majestically struck opener.

Memphis [Depuy] received plenty of the ball against Clyne in the first-half and had the pace to bypass him but was, once more, erratic and a liability in possession. Van Gaal is particularly perturbed by ‘unnecessary ball losses’ and Memphis was culpable time and again. Experience trumped youth for United for the first, if not the third. Reds will argue Anthony Martial’s £36m fee was justified just to leave Scousers crestfallen.

Read it all.