We finally got to it–wonderful stuff. Touching, moving and funny–very much worth your time–KSH.

Book Review: A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman https://t.co/hDQyxoGmF4 pic.twitter.com/qHivTv1R72

— Content Catnip (@contentcatnip) November 27, 2017

Pope Francis was in Myanmar this week spreading the Word of God. Many observers wondered if he would use a specific word: Rohingya. Barring an unforeseen statement—always possible on the papal plane home—it appears the Holy Father won’t, though he alluded to the crisis the word evokes.

Rohingya is the name of a persecuted religious and ethnic minority in the nation once known as Burma, where about 88% of people practice the Theravada Buddhist religion. The Rohingya are Muslims loathed and feared by those who insist on calling them “Bengalis,” as if they were foreigners in their own country. They are also targets of various forms of legally sanctioned discrimination and humiliation. Recently Myanmar’s military authorities have subjected them to ethnic cleansing. This has left between 600,000 and 900,000 of Myanmar’s 2.2 million Rohingya as refugees in bordering Bangladesh.

The word Rohingya offends the group’s persecutors. That’s because it implies recognition of the humanity and basic rights the Myanmar government denies. This would seem to create a perfect opportunity for Pope Francis, which is why human-rights activists called on him to speak the word boldly in public. But silence and speaking out both come with serious risks.

Read it all.

Archdeacon John Meade, coadjutor bishop-elect of the diocese of Western Newfoundland, died early in the morning of November 29, 2017. He was 45.

Meade had been in the hospital throughout the summer, but “faced his deteriorating medical situation with a calm faith,” according to a statement posted by the ecclesiastical province of Canada on its Facebook page.

Western Newfoundland Bishop Percy Coffin described Meade as “a dedicated man,” saying he “certainly was a dedicated person to his task—unwavering, unfaltering. He was just so committed.”

It was “a great sadness” that Meade was never consecrated as bishop, Coffin said. “He offered much, and there was a promising future for him.”

Read it all.

In a wide-ranging interview with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman (a.k.a. “MBS”) discussed, among other topics, the recent anti-corruption drive and liberalization of Saudi society. Call it a kinder, gentler form of authoritarianism – with a progressive touch. Notably, MBS refused to address his country’s interference in Lebanese politics or its unconscionable scorched-earth policy in Yemen.

Nonetheless, Mr. Friedman was effusive of MBS’s plans to veer Saudi Islam to a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.” The Prince calls it a “restoration” of the faith to its origins – namely the Prophetic period in the early 7th century. This has the potential to reverse the puritanical strain (Wahhabism) currently at the heart of Saudi society, where, for example, a woman is under male guardianship from cradle to grave.

The late Sunni scholar Abdul Halim Abu Shaqqa chronicled in his comprehensive study of the Koran and authentic traditions of Prophet Muhammad, Muslim women were far more engaged in society during the Prophetic era. They had more rights and opportunities to build a vibrant society, in partnership with men, than many contemporary Muslim cultures (including Saudi Arabia).

Mr. Friedman believes this “restoration” project “would drive moderation across the Muslim world.” In fact, most of the Muslim world has soundly rejected Wahhabism. Yet, the deeply entrenched patriarchy of Saudi society finds parallels in many Muslim countries.

Read it all.

Read it all as well as the full report.

Religious ideology cannot be blamed for extremism, a new report has said.

The report, Enough is Enough: Addressing the root causes of radicalisation, was published on Tuesday by the Oasis Foundation, a Christian movement that connects charities, churches, schools, and social enterprises in mission.

Islamic extremism is not driven by a single ideology, but by several factors, the report says. These same factors push individuals into gang culture, political extremism, and racial hatred.

These “push-factors” are not limited to religious belief, but can involve a lack of identity, belonging, and purpose; deprivation and economic marginalisation; mental-health issues; or community and family breakdown. The Government must acknowledge this by first tackling disadvantage and poverty in the UK, the report states.

Read it all.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who still today dost tread the busy thoroughfares of life in readiness to heal and save: Open our eyes that we may recognize thy presence; open our hearts that we may trust thy love for us; open our lips that we may joyfully confess thee before men; we ask it for thy dear name’s sake.

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

–Psalm 140:13

To the extent that Boylan engages with Phillips’s actual argument, she waves it away with a paragraph so specious that one has to read it to believe it:

Mr. Phillips certainly makes nice-looking cakes. But I’m not sure I’d call them artistic expressions, at least not in the same sense as, say, Joyce’s “Ulysses.” That argument demands that the court get into the business of defining art itself, a door the justices open at their peril. Is a well-manicured lawn a form of art by this definition? How about a lean corned beef sandwich? What would not be art if the court rules to protect icing and buttercream?

In this case, the complaining gay couple ultimately decided on a rainbow cake. Can Boylan not see that the cake clearly and unmistakably sent a specific message? There is a substantial difference between a rainbow symbol at an event celebrating a same-sex wedding and a corned-beef sandwich. Phillips isn’t comparing himself to Joyce, he’s making the painfully obvious point that there’s a viewpoint inherent in the expression his customers asked him to create — a viewpoint that a well-manicured lawn lacks.

Here’s the problem. If a writer squarely addresses the argument that Phillips actually makes, then she will soon run head-on to a sobering constitutional reality. Sexual revolutionaries are asking the Court to overturn generations of constitutional precedent to allow the state to compel American citizens to advance ideas they find reprehensible.

Boylan claims that Phillips is seeking special religious exemptions. To the contrary, sexual revolutionaries are seeking exemptions from the Constitution. They believe that same-sex marriage is so precious that even artists can be conscripted into the ceremony — despite their deeply held beliefs. They believe that the cost of entering the marketplace is not just the loss of your distinct artistic voice but the commandeering of that voice by your ideological foes to advance their ideological interests.

Read it all (his emphasis).

In a rare political intervention, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has explicitly criticised the US President Donald Trump for retweeting anti-Muslim videos posted by a British far-right extremist group. Archbishop Justin said “it is deeply disturbing that the President of the United States has chosen to amplify the voice of far-right extremists.” The UK Prime Minister Theresa May also criticised the US President, but was slapped down by Mr Trump, who told her to “focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism.”

The original tweets were posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a minority political party with virtually no support in Britain outside its estimated 1,000 followers. In a 2014 parliamentary by-election in the Rochester and Strood constituency, Fransen received just 56 of the 40,065 votes cast. She is currently awaiting trial in Belfast on charges of using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” and in Kent for inciting racial hatred.

She and her followers have stormed mosques and carried out what they call “Christian Patrols” – marching in paramilitary-stule uniforms carrying a large cross in areas of the UK populated by people who – either themselves or through their ancestors – have roots in south-Asian countries. She claims to be Christian but it is not known if she attends any church. Her actions and those of Britain First have been condemned by Christian leaders from across the denominational spread.

Read it all.

Twenty-one churches in Egypt’s southern rural Minya governorate can restore, expand and rebuild their churches after receiving approval from the Minya Governor.

Governor Essam al-Bedeiwi approved the 21 applications over the last six months. Some of the churches had been waiting for more than 20 years for a permit to come through.

On 17 November an evangelical church in Tama, Sohag governorate, also received permission to renovate its building.

Some analysts note that the approvals have preceded several visits by international evangelical delegations to Cairo.

Read it all.

The faith angle of the Markle story is certainly an interesting subject. What does the word “Protestant” mean in this context, as opposed to the word “Anglican”?

That’s a question worthy of discussion, but there are other layers to the puzzle. Some might hint at royal opinions about the match?

For example: If Markle is already a Protestant Christian, why is she being baptized? I have never heard of anyone being re-baptized in order to be confirmed as an Anglican. Protestant converts to Anglicanism, under ordinary circumstances, are simply confirmed. Catholics are “received” into the church, since they were already part of an ancient Communion (there’s that via media, part Catholic-part Protestant factor, again).

Was she part of some Christian movement that did not do a normal, small-o orthodox baptism rite? It’s easy to assume that she had some form of Christian identity, since the American actress is a spokesperson for the Christian charity World Vision.

Read it all.

But, for now, it is clear that the Uniting Methodists document requires that we consider all of the language around sexual immorality in the New Testament as either generic, non-specific or only referring to a very tiny slice of sexual immorality; namely, pederasty. Yet, as we have seen, the exegetical case for this is not defensible. If we are being asked to sign off on this option and “agree to disagree” on this issue, then we will need to have a much better conversation about the biblical data which pertains to this question.

I, for one, remain completely unconvinced by the progressive argument and am actually disappointed that they would argue so strongly about their commitment to biblical authority and yet provide no serious exegetical argument for the dramatic changes they wish to usher into the life and faith of the church. To move a named sin from a New Testament “sin list” and declare that we are now to regard it as a sacrament is unprecedented. Christians have every right to resist this doctrinal innovation which is being embraced by a few declining mainline denominations in the western world.

Read it all.

“When I look at the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established; what is man that thou are mindful of him” (Psalm 8:3)? It’s a haunting and powerful question. A man stands alone beneath a starry firmament in an open field, a mother gathers her newborn child into her arms for the first time, or a woman stands in a hospital room with family members to commend a just-deceased father to God’s care. First, a stillness. Then out of the depths the questions surge forth. Who, exactly, are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

Who we are is THE question of the twenty-first century. Partly this has theological roots. The church has lost touch with CREATION as a key part of her teaching since the nineteenth century, and then in the twentieth century, ESCHATOLOGY, the church’s sense of how history will finally come out, has been sadly neglected. So many Christians float out in philosophical space like Sputnik, without a clear sense of their beginning or their end. This makes the human identity question all the more poignant.

Another important reason is cultural. We have developed in the last fifty years hitherto unimaginable technology, thereby moving farther back the time in which we can sustain a preborn infant outside her mother’s womb, and we are moving farther out the time in which a person’s life can be continued. If a premature infant can be maintained, but without normal functioning, should they be? If an older person is in a hospital room and only kept alive with machines, and they seem to us to be nothing more than a ghost of their former selves, what are we to do? Is that life? Is that humanness?

These questions were movingly brought to the fore for me at a recent meeting of the Episcopal Church’s Working Group on Science, Technology and Faith. We heard a brilliant presentation by Dr. Stephen Post, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, on the moral theology of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dr. Post made two points clear. The first is that the issue of sustaining life for a longer and longer period is very much more pressing than many of us realize. Yes, there is an aging population in the West, but there is more. Researchers are working very hard to press out the envelope of the supposed “life expectancy” of people. I heard Gail Sheehy say in an interview that one third of girls born today will reach ninety. Dr. Post went further. He had just recently returned from a major conference in Germany in which NONE of those present assumed people would not soon be living from 120-140 years and beyond, it was only a question of when. The desire to be the first to achieve this feat among scientists is like the quest for the Holy Grail. One recent study extended the normal life span of a species of worm by three and one half times its normal range through use of external modifiers of one sort, another used different modifiers to double the expected life span of a fruit fly. If we think this is not coming for men and women, we are in for quite a shock.

This immediately raises troubling questions: if we know our days are numbered will we value them more?
Should we simply extend people’s possible life span if we have the capability of doing so?

The second problem posed by Dr. Post had to do with the way in which we value and appreciate who a person really is. He maintained we live in a “hypercognitive” society. Coming from a man who has worked with Alzheimer’s patients and their families since 1988 it had a special sting. Thinking and doing are what we in this country appear to be “about”, and if you cannot do those things, you are less valued. In some cases you become a sort of non-person, or worse.

But is this all there is to humanness? When God created men and women in his image, was it only to think and to do? What about being, feeling? What about loving and being loved? What about praying and being known and loved by God?

How interesting to see Alzheimer’s on the cover of Time magazine in 2001, for those who have this disease and those who care for them have much to teach us. When are you most alive? We do well to ponder that question, and as we do let us think foremost of him who loved his disciples in the world “until the end,” and who shows us that a person is never more alive than when he or she is on their knees praying to their heavenly Father.

–From what seems like a long time ago in a land far away

Kendall Harmon–Who are we Anyway? https://t.co/zDWgAZIA4e Who, exactly, are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Who we are is THE question of the twenty-first century #anthropology #ethics #21stc (Dr. Stephen Post therein) #alzheimers pic.twitter.com/awPVDSP8S1

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 30, 2017

Almighty God, who didst give such grace to thine apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of thy Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give unto us, who are called by thy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

30 November
Saint Andrew the Apostle pic.twitter.com/4D45MthFLI

— Kalina Boulter (@KalinaBoulter) November 30, 2016

O Lord God of time and eternity, who makest us creatures of time that, when time is over, we may attain thy blessed eternity: With time, thy gift, give us also wisdom to redeem the time, lest our day of grace be lost; for our Lord Jesus’ sake.

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

Evangelical leaders have raised concerns that the current reform bills in the House and Senate would reduce the incentives that compel givers to donate to churches and other nonprofits.

Currently, taxpayers must itemize their deductions in order to take advantage of the tax breaks for charitable giving. Since the proposed GOP tax reforms would increase the standard deduction, fewer Americans are expected to itemize as a result—dropping from 30 percent of taxpayers to just 5 percent, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

Doubling the standard deduction means 30 million Americans would no longer benefit from a deduction for their charitable giving, a change that is predicted to reduce giving by $13 billion annually, according to Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Read it all.

In recent years, Europe has experienced a record influx of asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in Syria and other predominantly Muslim countries. This wave of Muslim migrants has prompted debate about immigration and security policies in numerous countries and has raised questions about the current and future number of Muslims in Europe.

To see how the size of Europe’s Muslim population may change in the coming decades, Pew Research Center has modeled three scenarios that vary depending on future levels of migration. These are not efforts to predict what will happen in the future, but rather a set of projections about what could happen under different circumstances.

The baseline for all three scenarios is the Muslim population in Europe (defined here as the 28 countries presently in the European Union, plus Norway and Switzerland) as of mid-2016, estimated at 25.8 million (4.9% of the overall population) – up from 19.5 million (3.8%) in 2010.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church has encouraged its members to seriously speak against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), corruption and political oppression.

Zambia Anglican Bishop and Primate of the Council of Anglican Province in Africa (CAPA), Albert Chama said this at the just-ended two-day Anglican 2017 high-profile Provincial Synod held in Gaborone.

The Central Africa Province Synod consists of Anglican bishops from Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe and convenes every three years. The main aim of the meeting is to deliberate on diocesan matters in the region.

“Our continent of Africa has been gripped with fear, deaths, ethnic divisions and many more evils one can think of.

Read it all.

But for Ms. [Afua] Hirsch and other chroniclers of racial inequality in Britain, it is problematic to frame Ms. Markle’s engagement as too seminal a moment. The symbolism of Ms. Markle’s entry into a family that once shunned commoners, Catholics and divorced people — let alone nonwhites — does little to diminish structural racism across Britain, several commentators said.

“Markle is not Britain’s Obama moment and shouldn’t be covered as such,” tweeted Reni Eddo-Lodge, the author of “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race,” a new book about institutional racism in Britain.

On Tuesday, it was announced that Ms. Markle would — in addition to joining the Anglican Church — apply for British citizenship after marrying Prince Harry on an unspecified date in May in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the site of many royal weddings.

In response, a columnist for The Independent highlighted how Ms. Markle would find it far easier to gain citizenship through her husband, compared with the process other nonwhite immigrants face. Such immigrants are disproportionately more likely to fail the admission criteria than their white counterparts.

Read it all.

People fundamentally believe lots of things but that does not necessarily make them true. We don’t legislate on the basis of astrology or homeopathy, for example, yet the government is considering reforms to the Gender Recognition Act that may allow people to self-identify their legal sex based on their fundamental beliefs.

As a transgender woman I find that deeply troubling. The mechanism by which our legal sex can be changed underpins the equality legislation that protects transgender rights. I am a science teacher, and that protection was vital when I transitioned in school five years ago.

The same piece of legislation defends women’s rights. Some women have perceived a conflict and they are asking hard questions. If anyone can self-identify as a woman, what does the word woman even mean? My dictionary tells me that a woman is an adult human female, but that does not fit well with the claim that “transgender women are women”. This is painful territory for transgender people, and it is tempting to shut down debate and dismiss concerns as transphobia. But concerns don’t go away, they fester, and we risk transgender-acceptance being replaced by transgender-suspicion.

Read it all (requires subscription).

Bishop Stuart said he would “certainly be looking at a number of women candidates” for the assistant bishop position he has held since 2009, which he vacates in the new year after his election on Saturday to be the 14th Bishop of Newcastle.

It was the diocese’s first woman Archdeacon to preside over a synod, Sonia Roulston, who phoned Bishop Stuart to say he had the job. He took the call while standing at the top of the Christ Church Cathedral tower “having a look at Newcastle enjoying itself with the Supercar races”, he said.

“It was quite moving to have that communication under those circumstances,” he said.

Bishop Stuart is the first clergyman in more than a century to be elected Bishop from within Newcastle diocese after a synod in 1906 elected the Dean of Newcastle, John Stretch, to be its fourth Bishop.

Read it all.

Newly-elected Newcastle Anglican Bishop Peter Stuart a 'passionate supporter' of women in ministry
https://t.co/dJpya1GGkh #anglican #australia

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 29, 2017

In a follow-up interview, …[Archbp Justin Welby] claimed that his entire ministry is one of reconciliation and then applied that to the divisions within the Anglican Communion over sexuality. “Our challenge” he said, “is to work our way forward, holding on to the truths that are given to us through Jesus and in the Scriptures; and yet never sinking to the level of demonising or hating people because they are homosexual.”

So what precisely are the truths given to us through Jesus and in the Scriptures? At the 1998 Lambeth Conference, 570 bishops stated that “[this Conference] in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage” and that “while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation” (Resolution I.10).

Justin Welby has refused to commend this Resolution and, so I argue, intends to relegate it to the dustbin of history. This Resolution – repeatedly affirmed by Global South churches, including the Anglican Church of Kenya, and repeatedly violated by the Episcopal Church USA and others – notably went missing from the October 2017 Lambeth Primates’ Communiqué.

In his interview, Justin Welby proceeded to laud this Primates’ Meeting as an example of unity in difference, skipping over the fact that three of the major Primates from Africa (Uganda, Rwanda, and Nigeria), representing about 40% of the Anglicans in the world, had refused to attend.

Read it all.

Christians freely obey Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. “Come,” he beckons, “follow me.” Being a Christian requires more than intellectual or moral agreement with Christian teachings. Christ asks for our love and loyalty. Following him requires conversion, which leads to membership in the Church, the Body of Christ. To be a Christian means being a citizen of a city that has a rich inheritance and glorious future. As the Psalmist says, “Walk about Zion, go round about her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels; that you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will be our guide for ever” (Ps. 48:12–14). Christianity is a community of faith shaped by the Holy Spirit, by worship and proclamation, by prayer and spiritual discipline, by ancient rites and teachings that are received from those who have gone before. Within this community of faith, we come to know and enjoy the presence of God.

Christianity is not a religion, if by that we mean one among many expressions of the natural human impulse to encounter the divine. The Christian way of life is rooted in the people of Israel. Christians share with Jews a common heritage reaching back to a time well before the age in which Jesus of Nazareth lived and preached. It begins with God’s gracious promise to Abraham: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen. 12:1–3).

Read it all (emphasis mine).

O Blessed Jesus, who hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, and hast consecrated us in baptism to be temples of the Holy Ghost: Make us, we beseech thee, both in body and soul, meet for thy dwelling place; that our hearts may be houses of prayer and praise, of pure desires and holy thoughts of thee, whose we are and whom we serve, and to whom be glory, now and for evermore.

So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

To you therefore who believe, he is precious, but for those who do not believe,

and

for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.

–1 Peter 2:1-10

(Onion) Buick Introduces New Self-Buying Car https://t.co/gbjAoyqtIc #humour #consumerspending #AutonomousVehicles “In what marks a watershed moment for this company, we here at Buick are proud to present the first and only car that purchases itself” LOL

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 29, 2017

The Vicar of a North London Church has published a new book sharing his experiences of running a Memory Café in his parish in the hope of encouraging other churches to do the same.

The Revd Steve Morris, Vicar of St Cuthbert’s Church in Wembley, established a memory café in May 2015 as a way to help tackle loneliness and isolation in his parish, and enable the church to play a central role in the heart of community life in Brent.

The memory café concept brings together isolated people from different backgrounds and faiths in a safe environment, allowing them to forge connections, share companionship, and keep mentally active and physically fit through chair aerobics and healthy eating projects. Such has been the success of the initiative that St Cuthbert’s have even assembled a memory café choir, which recently performed with the choir of the Metropolitan Police Service.

Read it all.