Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!

–Psalm 38:21-22

Though often the subject of much debate””both theologically and scientifically””the majority of American adults (66%) believe people can be physically healed supernaturally by God. This majority is made up equally between those who either strongly (33%) or somewhat (33%) agree that it’s possible to be physically healed supernaturally by God. The remaining one-third (34%) are skeptical, comprised of those who either strongly (19%) or somewhat (15%) disagree.

Though there is consensus across the generational groups among those who strongly agree about supernatural healing, when it comes to those who strongly disagree, Millennials are more likely to be skeptical””one-quarter (25%) strongly disagree, twice the amount of Elders (13%). The other two groups fit into a sliding scale based on age (Gen-Xers: 21% and Boomers: 14%).

Read it all.

A former bishop of North Africa, Bill Musk, noted that North African Christians were persecuted in the early centuries of Christianity as they are now, and said unity was vital to withstand such challenges. A communiqué from the talks reported: “The Arab invasions eventually overwhelmed the church [in North Africa], but the seeds of its demise were sown long before.”

Bishop Emeritus Musk also praised the fifth-century Council of Carthage, which took place in what is now Tunisia, at which it was decided that no diocese had the right to discipline leaders in another, despite a deep cultural divide within the church. Bishop Musk described the church at that time as being riven between a Latin elite that advocated a compassionate response to Christians who denied their faith under persecution, and local Berbers, who insisted upon faithfulness to Christianity until death.

Speakers at the conference emphasised the church’s North African heritage, challenging the view of the church as a foreign imposition foisted on Europe’s former colonies. American Canon Dr. Ashley Null, highlighted the “deep dependence” of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, one of the architects of Anglicanism, on St. Augustine, whose bishopric of Hippo lies in modern-day Algeria.

Read it all.

Charleston has been named as the nation’s top small city for the sixth time in a row.

Condé Nast Traveler announced its annual Readers’ Choice Awards Tuesday.

“The readers of Condé Nast Traveler are lauded as some of the world’s most discerning, and the hospitality scene in Charleston continues to charm,” Linn Lesesne, board chair of the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be recognized once again for our friendly people, historic ambiance and culture, award-winning restaurants, one-of-a-kind shopping and renowned accommodations.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

A historic Coventry cemetery created by acclaimed designer Joseph Paxton in the mid 19th century is set to receive a £1million makeover.

The refurbishment of London Road Cemetery – where hundreds of victims of the Coventry Blitz are buried – will be carried out by IDP Landscape, a division of Coventry-based architectural and urban design practice IDP.

The Grade I listed cemetery was created by Paxton, a famed gardener, architect and MP who went on to design London’s Crystal Palace, in 1845.

The restoration work is being carried out following a grant award from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Read it all.

This [past] week many around the world have prayed for the Pakistani Supreme Court hearing for Asia Bibi that took place yesterday. Over the years, I have written a number of articles on these pages describing the horrific plight of Asia Bibi. Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Christian, and a married mother of five, who was sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistan’s notorious criminal code section 295(c), which prescribes the death penalty for “insulting” Mohammed and Islam. What was her “crime?” It was in June 2009, while working in the fields, that she was sent to bring water for the other farm workers. Some of the Moslem workers refused to drink the water she brought as they considered water touched by Christians to be “unclean.” Her co-workers then complained to the local authorities that she made derogatory comments about Mohammed. What was the derogatory comment she was alleged to have made? The Moslem women claimed that Asia Bibi said: “I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind?” Asia Bibi is illiterate, and is considered to be an uneducated woman, but she asked a deeply profound question.

Read it all from Touchstone.

Is the human genome sacred? Does editing it violate the idea that we’re made in God’s image or, perhaps worse, allow us to “play God”?

It’s hard to imagine weightier questions. And so to address them, Ting Wu is starting small.

Last month, the geneticist was here in a conference room outside Baltimore, its pale green walls lined with mirrors, asking pastors from area black churches to consider helping her.

Read it all.

York Minster dismissed 30 volunteer bellringers because one member of the group was regarded as a safeguarding risk, according to a statement delivered by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu.

Other members of the group “consistently challenged” the minster’s governing body, the Chapter of York, on this and other matters, the statement from York Minster said.

The volunteers were told at a special meeting last Tuesday that bellringing activity at the minster would cease with immediate effect for “health and safety” reasons and that they were dismissed.

Read it all.

If you could live out your deepest, darkest fantasies, what would you do? Who would you become?

That’s a question explored in Westworld, a TV reincarnation of Michael Crichton’s 1973 movie, in which rich customers visit a Western-styled theme park filled with humanoid androids. In the original film, Yul Brynner starred as a malfunctioning robot whose relentless pursuit of his victims made for compelling viewing. The TV show, which debuted this month, is equally enthralling and not simply because the updated CGI is breath-taking. The storyline has also been described as ”˜sinister and spectacular’.

Against astonishingly beautiful backdrops, rich ”˜guests’ fulfil their fantasies as they interact with androids, known as ”˜hosts’. The producers’ take on this is that when humans are given this kind of freedom, they will stoop to the lowest forms of depravity. Not just sex, but rape. Not just murder, but torture.

Read it all.

Almighty God, who didst inspire thy servant Luke the physician to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of thy Son: Graciously continue in thy Church the like love and power to heal, to the praise and glory of thy Name; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today is the Feast of Saint Luke the Physician. Please pray for all doctors, surgeons, nurses & all health care workers.@EastLancsHosp pic.twitter.com/RJInkihhDJ

— Father Roger Parker (@SCathsParsonage) October 18, 2016

O God our Father, let us find grace in thy sight so as to have grace to serve thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear; and further grace not to receive thy grace in vain, nor to neglect it and fall from it, but to stir it up and grow in it, and to persevere in it unto the end of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

O LORD, I love the habitation of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwells.

–Psalm 26:8

Built into the Christian faith is a powerful and comprehensive dynamic towards doing good. Of course anybody can conceive of a programme for dealing with what’s wrong with the world. The problem is that good intentions are inadequate without motivation. Fortunately, Christianity supplies exactly that. For Christians the motive for good deeds is simply the gratitude we feel in response to God’s grace in Christ. There is the expectation that we are to become progressively more like the Christ who redeemed us.

Read it all

Both Delumeau and Bossy feature in Eire’s bibliography, but he has little sympathy with these attempts at an overarching morphology of “Reformation.” For him, what characterizes the religious transformations of the sixteenth century, and their out-workings in the seventeenth, is not a single unifying energy, good or bad, but their variety and multiple incompatibilities. The occasion of his book is the upcoming Luther anniversary, and he does justice to Luther’s unique role in triggering the collapse of the medieval religious synthesis. But he is keen to emphasize that Luther was just one, if the first, of the agents of the dramatic upheavals of the period, and in the long term, by no means the most important. Zwingli, a former humanist whose abandonment of medieval Catholic orthodoxy predated Luther’s, gets extended treatment, as does Calvin, who built on Zwingli’s initiatives to create the disciplined structures and alliances with civic society which would become the normative form of Protestantism. So, too, do the leaders of the more radical, apocalyptic, or rationalizing alternatives to Catholicism and to what became “mainstream” Protestantism. Eire does not give much away in his personal assessment of Luther, though alongside a meticulous analysis of the theology we get ample quotation illustrating Luther’s disconcerting penchant for scatological insult and a preoccupation with excreta aimed indiscriminately at Catholics and the devil.

Eire’s final chapter on the great Reformer is headed “Luther the reactionary” and deals with Luther’s violent repudiation of the apocalyptic radicalism of former disciples like Andreas Karlstadt and Thomas Müntzer, and especially with the Wittenbergers’ savage reaction to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1525….

Read it all.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

(Christ/St. Paul’s Church Yonges Island SC; photo by Jacob Borrett)

The Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and the entire Church received with delight, relief and optimism the news of the release of 21 of the Chibok girls that we had long been praying for in the last two years. This was particularly heartening at a time when hope was almost fading about whether these girls would return again. And while the release of these 21 girls is heartwarming, one hopes that it is an indication that the rest will be released in due course at which time the joy of the entire nation can be full.

Read it all

The Church of England is at a crossroads in her calling to bring hope and transformation to our nation. The presenting issue is that of human sexuality, in particular whether or not the Church is able to affirm sexual relationships beyond opposite sex marriage. But the tectonic issues beneath, and driving, this specific question include what it means to be faithful to our apostolic inheritance, the Church’s relationship with wider culture, and the nature of the biblical call to holiness in the 21st Century. ”¦

We do not believe ”¦ that it is within our gift to consider human sexual relationships and what constitutes and enables our flourishing as sexual beings to be of ”˜secondary importance’. What is at stake goes far beyond the immediate pastoral challenges of human bisexual and same-sex sexual behaviour: it is a choice between alternative and radically different visions of what it means to be human, to honour God in our bodies, and to order our lives in line with God’s holy will.

At this crucial juncture, as our bishops pray and discern together regarding how the Church of England should walk forward at this time, we urge them not to depart from the apostolic inheritance with which they have been entrusted. ”¦”

Read it all on Psephiso or Gafcon UK

The Anglican Diocese of Calabar on Monday pointed out that the practice of true federalism in Nigeria is the only panacea to Nigeria’s multifaceted problems.

Bishop of the Diocese, Rt. Rev. Tunde Adeleye, who stated this at a press briefing to mark the 2nd session of 9th Synod of the Diocese in Calabar, averred that states should be given more powers to manage some pressing local affairs, while the Federal Government should maintain its roles on national security and diplomatic matters.

Read it all.

In the historic Parish Church of St. Helena Sunday morning, clergy delivered a message of gratitude in the calm following Hurricane Matthew’s storm.

“The question for us today is ”˜are you thankful?’” Rev. Shay Gaillard asked during his sermon taken from the New Testament book of Luke.

Residents who stayed in town to ride out the storm might have felt alone, Gaillard said, and those who evacuated might have felt vulnerable without their normal support system.

Read it all.

The human tragedy that is the Calais ”˜jungle’ camp has been a constant cause for concern and prayer in the Diocese. Being but a few miles from our own coastline, its devastating impact on those that live and volunteer there, the local French community, lorry drivers and port workers, holiday-makers and security staff, has been impossible to ignore.

Although clearly an intolerable situation, news of its imminent dismantling does little to dispel concern for everyone involved. Our prayer now is that the clearance process be carried out with humanity and in the recognition of the human dignity of each person present. We acknowledge too the need for swift and urgent protection for the many unaccompanied young people and children present in the camp who are now faced with increased danger.

Read it all.

The appeal to pastoral accommodation as a way forward has now been analysed both in principle and in relation to three examples. This has shown there are major problems with appealing to pastoral accommodation to justify commonly proposed developments affirming of sexual same-sex unions without either changing the church’s teaching or demonstrating and getting agreement that the developments are in principle consistent with that teaching. This does not rule out such developments as clergy in same-sex sexual unions (including marriages) or the liturgical recognition of such unions. It does though mean that if they are to be proposed (by the bishops or anyone else) then some other justifications than simply an appeal to pastoral accommodation are needed and these other rationales will need to be developed and weighed by the church. An appeal to pastoral accommodation properly understood and as we have used it in the past simply will not work.

Read it all.

Ignatius offers a fascinating insight into the heart of a true man of God given over to His will. It is tempting to want to leap from his example and vision of episcopacy to its practice within our own Church at this time, but such a leap needs great care. A bishop in the first decade of the second century cannot fairly be compared even to one of 250 years later let alone in the Church of today. The three-fold ministry was still in an early stage of its development. Even though Lightfoot has cogently argued that a case can be made for regarding episcopacy as being of Apostolic direction, and therefore possessing Divine sanction, long years of evolution and growth lay before it. At this stage too the Church across the Roman Empire faced the daily possibility of considerable persecution and martyrdom. That demanded a particular kind of shepherding and witness.
On the other hand a bishop at the beginning of the third millennium might profitably and properly ask (or be asked) whether endless committees and synods are really the way in which their lives are to be laid down for their flock? An institution requires administration, but in the New Testament list of charisms, administrators are quite low in the order of priorities, and of its pastors at this time the Church has other, more pressing, needs. Rather than imposing upon an already disheartened clergy systems of appraisal (mostly copied from secular models of management) it would be good for parish priests to experience bishops as those who were around so much that they could afford regularly to ”˜drop in’ and just be with them. It is hard to expect the parish clergy to make visiting a priority if their fathers in God do not set an example.

In some dioceses the more obviously pastoral role has sometimes been exercised by a suffragan but as more and more diocesan bishops, at least within the Church of England, are being selected from the ranks of the suffragans the temptation is for those who are ambitious to prove their worth more as potential managers than those given to the ”˜Word of God and prayer’ (Acts 6.2). If the communities within which the bishops are to exercise their ministry of unity and care are too large for them to do their work has not the time come to press for smaller dioceses and for bishops to strip themselves of the remnants of the grandeur their office once held and be found, above all, with their clergy and amongst the people, drawing them together into the unity for which Christ gave himself?

Read it all.

I have just returned from participating in the Sixth Global South “South-to-South” Encounter of Archbishops, Bishops, Clergy, theologians and other leaders from 16 Provinces in the Global South (plus other orthodox Anglican representatives from Bangladesh, USA, Canada, and Australia). It was a privilege to represent the Province of North America (Anglican Church in North America) and to serve on the team that helped to draft the Communique from Cairo October 6, 2016.

With everything still fresh in mind, I’d like to point out seven (7) take-aways from the Global South Communique…
………………..
..then the Communique turns its attention to the Mother Church itself, the Church of England (COE). In the context of just condemning those Provinces so closely linked, geographically and historically, to England, the Communique goes on to say “We are deeply concerned that there appears to be a potential move towards the acceptance of blessing of same sex union by COE.” (para. 31). The Global South is watching the Mother Church closely. In typically gracious fashion, the Global South cites the “potential move.” It hasn’t happened, yet. But it is on the table; the recommendations of the Pilling Report are before the COE General Synod. With grace, the Communique notes the unique role of the COE in the life of the Communion: how its decisions as the Mother Church impact the Communion more deeply, how its Primate (the ABC) is “first among equals.” But the Global South is watching nonetheless. And then it concludes with a not-so-subtle warning: the acceptance of the blessing of same sex union by COE “would have serious implications for us should it occur.” (para. 31).

What are those implications? How should we imagine them in the context of the statement about the role of the ABC as “first among equals”? The presence of the Bishops of Winchester and Durham, the next most senior Sees in the COE after Canterbury and York, highlights the gravity of the situation in the COE. The Global South is watching, and waiting.

Read it all

Almighty God, we praise thy name for thy bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch, who offered himself as grain to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts that he might present unto thee the pure bread of sacrifice. Accept, we pray thee, the willing tribute of our lives, and give us a share in the pure and spotless offering of thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Ah, ohlala, que je souffre, oh, c'est terrible !
Cesare Fracanzano – Martyrdom of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. N.d., XVIIth century pic.twitter.com/qbVbKSFkrg

— Corentin (@Atogadp) September 28, 2016

Grant us, O Lord, so to enter on the service of our Christian warfare, that, putting on the whole armour of God, we may endure hardness and fight against the spiritual powers of darkness, and be more than conquerors through him that loved us, Jesus Christ our Lord.

To thee, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in thee I trust,
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know thy ways, O Lord;
teach me thy paths.
Lead me in thy truth, and teach me,
for thou art the God of my salvation;
for thee I wait all the day long.

–Psalm 25:1-4

Three Christian converts each facing 80 lashes for drinking alcohol during Holy Communion are due before an Iranian court to challenge their sentences.

They were arrested on 13th May 2016 and charged with “acting against national security”, alongside Youcef Nadarkhani, a pastor once sentenced to death for apostasy.

Miles Windsor from Middle East Concern, an organisation which defends the religious freedoms of Christians, told Premier Christian Radio: “Do be praying that these men would be acquitted, that they will be freed.

Read it all

..When things fall apart, people are destroyed. It’s not something to be wished for. The integrity of Christianity””along with most forms of human decency””was not strengthened by the demise of the Roman Empire, nor by the collapse of the corrupted Weimar Republic. As a conservative, I believe that continuities, even twisted ones, form a more trustworthy basis for radical renewal than do the apocalyptic cataclysms of social chaos.
……………..
Christians should see the present nadir of American politics and its enabling of a hollowed-out culture as a summons to deeper catechesis, more persuasive apologetics, fuller evangelical communion, brighter martyrdoms. Nor does this does preclude Christian engagement in public life, however difficult that may be in our present culture of “liberal” intolerance, precisely if our engagement is sustained by the renewal of a common witness of faith. As Christians, we bear terrible responsibilities, in our complicities and acquiescence, for a past that has brought us to this condition. We now bear even heavier constructive ones for the future. It is a venerable penance and vocation, that stands independent of the political parties of our era.

Read it all