The #gardenofgethsemane by Carl Block, the acclaimed Danish artist. A moving and tender image whether you have a faith or none pic.twitter.com/T5g423VzqI

— Beech Genealogy (@GenealogyBeech) April 13, 2017

O Lord Jesus Christ, who in the garden didst teach us, by word and example, to pray, that we might overcome the perils of temptation: Graciously grant that we, always continuing in prayer, may gain abundantly the fruit thereof, and be partakers of thy victory; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

St. Peter once: ”˜Lord, dost thou wash my feet?’””
Much more I say: Lord, dost thou stand and knock
At my closed heart more rugged than a rock,
Bolted and barred, for thy soft touch unmeet,
Nor garnished nor in any wise made sweet?
Owls roost within and dancing satyrs mock.
Lord, I have heard the crowing of the cock
And have not wept: ah, Lord, though knowest it,
Yet still I hear thee knocking, still I hear:
”˜Open to me, look on me eye to eye,
That I may wring thy heart and make it whole;
And teach thee love because I hold thee dear
And sup with thee in gladness soul with soul,
And sup with thee in glory by and by.’

–Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

From Rod Whitacre here:

In the story of the footwashing, then, we have the most profound revelation of the heart of God apart from the crucifixion itself. We also learn more of the relation between Jesus and his disciples, the relation of the disciples with one another in humble service and the mission of the disciples to the world. These themes are similar to those of the Eucharist developed earlier (see comments on 6:52-59). The community that Jesus has been forming here takes more definite shape, revealing more clearly “the law of its being” (Bultmann 1971:479), which is humble, self-sacrificing love.

A collect for #MaundyThursday #HolyWeek #Lent: pic.twitter.com/dzidifryWf

— Church of England (@c_of_e) April 13, 2017

Lord Jesus Christ, who when thou wast about to institute thy holy Sacrament at the Last Supper didst wash the feet of the apostles, and teach us by thy example the grace of humility: Cleanse us, we beseech thee, from all stain of sin, that we may be worthy partakers of thy holy mysteries; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

Gospel: Peter recoils from the foot-washing, because it is Jesus. And because Jesus asks for a community of equals. pic.twitter.com/WUZQhOBIs2

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) March 24, 2016

As is our custom, we aim to let go of the cares and concerns of this world until Monday and to focus on the great, awesome, solemn and holy events of the next three days. I would ask people to concentrate their comments on the personal, devotional, and theological aspects of these days which will be our focal point here. Many thanks–KSH.

#MaundyThursday is a medieval anglicisation of opening lines of service for the day, 'mandatum novum' – 'new commandment' (John 13:34) pic.twitter.com/4v1pxShHmw

— Amy Jeffs (@amyjeffs0) April 13, 2017

Queen Elizabeth distributes Royal Maundy money at Leicester Cathedral#AnglicanNews #MaundyThursdayhttps://t.co/8TuRaH1qoz pic.twitter.com/fGSI7fi9JX

— Anglican Communion (@ACOffice) April 13, 2017

Queen Elizabeth II has distributed ceremonial pouches of coins to 182 men and women in a Maundy Thursday ceremony that dates back to the 13th Century. The queen, wearing a turquoise green coat and matching hat, handed out the money during a service at Leicester Cathedral in the English Midlands. In doing so she has now taken part in the traditional annual Maundy Thursday service in every one of England’s Anglican cathedrals.

The recipients were selected for their service to the church and community. Each of them – 91 each of male and female as the Queen is 91 years of age – received two pouches. A red one contained a commemorative £5 coin, commemorating the Centenary of the House of Windsor and a 50p coin commemorating Sir Isaac Newton; while a white pouch contained 91 pence – again, equal to her age – in specially minted Maundy coins.

Read it all.

SHAPIRO: There is such an interesting relationship between these emerging religious practices or returning religious practices, I guess we should say, and the government. There are several instances where you talk about sort of local government observers sitting in the back of a religious ceremony, and the preacher trying to thread this needle where he can deliver a message that might be a little bit barbed but deliver it not so explicitly that the government agents will shut down the ceremony.

JOHNSON: Yeah, especially with Christianity. There’s a suspicion of it from the government side. They see Christianity as foreign-influenced. So in that particular case, yeah, there were plainclothes police at the back of the hall – this was a big Christmas service that I attended – and they were listening in. And I think they were eager to find an excuse to shut it down, but they didn’t.

On the other hand, the so-called traditional faiths are often really encouraged by the government. And we can see this under Xi Jinping, that he’s given a lot of money and support to traditional religions like Buddhism and Taoism.

Read it all.

What guidance can religious leaders offer in these times of political uncertainty and polarisation?
I think that religious leaders have an absolute duty to be crystal clear about human equality, about the porous nature of national boundaries, about the indivisible character of human interests and well-being. In other words, you can’t have a globe in which one bit of the human race profits indefinitely at the expense of another, or in which the suffering of one part of the human race is irrelevant to the well-being of another. I think that’s built into the DNA of every major religious tradition and that’s perhaps what religious leaders should be saying.

Have academics and religious leaders become more politicised recently?
I think they have always been political. If you look at the history of the university in the 17th century, the great political arguments get hammered out in universities as much as in court or in Parliament, so I don’t think that there’s anything new about academics or religious leaders having a political profile. I think that sometimes we nurture a bit of a fiction that, in the old days, clergy and dons just kept to themselves; they never did.

How has higher education changed in the past five to 10 years?
The public rhetoric around it has become much more oriented towards the idea of the student as a consumer, and a great deal of publicity has been predicated on that.

Read it all.

A #MaundyThursday healing miracle performed by the monastic reformer St Gilbert of Sempringham (1083-1189). #medieval #histmed pic.twitter.com/nmboh9rc24

— Katherine Harvey (@keharvey2013) April 13, 2017

On Maundy Thursday today in which we remember the last supper, it is distressing beyond belief to know that the steady ‘crucifixion’ of Middle East Christians continues.

There are millions in the Middle East today whose identities are attacked daily. They are being eradicated in a region of the world where they have always coexisted with others. These are ancient communities who face a daily threat of being slaughtered in the relentless brutality of war.

One of the most disturbing things about the current crisis is how slow the world has been to recognise that Christians, and indeed other groups such as Yazidis, are facing genocide in Syria and Iraq. Even those governments which recognise there is a serious problem are sitting on their hands and doing nothing to prevent the eradication of Christians from the birthplace of our faith.

Read it all (may require subscription).

A terrorist incident in a jail is more likely now than at any time since a break-out by the Provisional IRA from a top-security prison in 1994, according to a former governor who has conducted a review into Islamic extremism.

Ian Acheson warns that radical Islam is “taking hold” in prisons and that officers lack the skills to deal with the threat.

Read it all (requires subsciption).

Tributes from across the world have been sent following Bishop’s Keith death from people including the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who became friends with Bishop Keith when he was chaplain and tutor at Bishop Tucker College in Uganda between 1968 and 1973. Bishop Keith secured a visa for Dr Sentamu to flee Uganda, under the reign if President Idi Amin, to study theology at Cambridge University.

Dr Sentamu said: “Bishop Keith loved people and was passionate about communicating the Gospel in a language they would understand. He was a pastor, a theological educator, a friend, an encourager, with a big heart for the poor and marginalised.

“He was sent to South Africa by Archbishop Robert Runcie when Archbishop Desmond Tutu had been put under House Arrest. In defiance of the Apartheid Regime, Bishop Keith said to a vast crowd outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town: ‘Anyone who touches you, touches us. And believe you me, the arm of the Rule of Law knows no bounds, colour, gender, ethnicity. Jesus Christ is the only Lord and all in him are one.’

Read it all.

The story included two other numbers that would catch the eye of careful reporters: “The church conducted 130,000 baptisms in the year, down 12% since 2004; 50,000 marriages, down 19%. …”

I bring this up because of a sad, but interesting, Religion News Service piece about another side effect of these numbers. There is no way that this rather dull headline captures the emotions many Brits will feel about this topic: “Endangered Anglican cathedrals prompt Church of England review.”

The bottom line: How does one keep the doors of cathedrals open (even for tourists) when the faithful rarely kneel at the altars or bring children into the pews?

Think of the implications. Does the government keep many of these buildings open as architectural exhibits? Should some be sold to Roman Catholic congregations? Could some become mosques?

Read it all.

The cathedral is set, the sun is out and #Leicester is ready to welcome HM The Queen #RoyalMaundy pic.twitter.com/tu2QrGeJNd

— Leicester Cathedral (@LeicsCathedral) April 13, 2017

Owen Sound’s two Anglican churches will become one in June.

In February, the congregation of St. Thomas Anglican Church, in a 91-year-old stone building at 1331 4th Ave. W., asked if it could join St. George’s Anglican Church at 1049 4th Ave. E. in downtown Owen Sound.

The Rev. Claire Miller of St. Thomas church said the financial burden on the small congregation grew too heavy to bear alone. As both churches have shared services and social events, it seemed a “natural step” to join, she said Wednesday, pausing from preparing for Easter Sunday services.

“I think it was a very obvious decision,” Miller said. “From a practical sense and a business standpoint it makes sense to consolidate and pool resources and have a larger Anglican presence, one Anglican presence rather than being split.

“But I mean it is very emotional. People were born and baptized in this church, and married and there’s been funerals. So they’ve spent their life, this has been a big part of their spiritual and their social lives as well.”

Read it all.

Blessed Lord Jesus, who, when about to depart out of this world, having loved thine own, and loving them to the end, didst institute the holy sacrament of thy Body and Blood, the dying legacy of thy love: Vouchsafe, we earnestly pray thee, that we may never draw near thine altar, save with hearts enkindled by love for thee and for one another; for thy dear name’s sake.

O Lord, thou hast deceived me,
and I was deceived;
thou art stronger than I,
and thou hast prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all the day;
every one mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I cry out,
I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, “I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
say all my familiar friends,
watching for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived,
then we can overcome him,
and take our revenge on him.”
But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble,
they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.

–Jeremiah 20:7-11

It looks as though the Church of England now has a new buzz word. In the past few years the buzz word has been ‘good disagreement’ but now it appears to be ‘radical inclusion.’ In his speech at the conclusion of the debate in General Synod on the House of Bishops report on Marriage and Sexual Relationships after the Shared Conversations the Archbishop of Canterbury talked about the need for ‘a radical new Christian inclusion.’ The same phrase was then used by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their letter issued in response to the debate.

One of the problems with the term ‘good disagreement’ was that its meaning was never formally defined and so it was difficult to be sure what it actually meant. In a similar fashion the Archbishops have not given a clear definition of ‘a radical new Christian inclusion’ either, but in their letter they appear to link it to a way forward for the Church of England that is ‘about love, joy and celebration of our common humanity; of our creation in the image of God, of our belonging to Christ – all of us, without exception, without exclusion.’

There are three problems with this view of the meaning of radical inclusion. First, it mentions the creation of human beings in the image of God, but passes over the fact that human beings are also fallen. Secondly, it talks about our belonging to Christ, but is silent about what this belonging involves. Thirdly, by linking both under the rubric of our ‘common humanity,’ it suggests that all human beings without exception are not only created by God, but also belong to Christ (which is not true).

In the remainder of this blog I shall set out an alternative Anglican account of inclusion that avoids these problems, drawing on the teaching of the Thirty Nine Articles and other authorised Anglican sources, as well as the work of Martin Luther.

Read it all.

Why do our bishops lead in such ecclesiastically unhealthy ways? For several reasons.

First, many of them were theologically and morally formed during earlier days of American Christendom, before secular forces in the culture became dominant. During those days, the church and the culture mostly got along. If they did not, the church simply tried to catch up to the culture. The church and her leaders were seldom at odds with the culture and its leaders.

Second, there are theological reasons for inept episcopal leadership. Liberal Protestantism’s God—the “God without wrath [who] brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross” (as H. Richard Niebuhr put it)—has trouble saying “No” to anything except the racism, sexism, and other isms denounced by progressives. So do bishops who worship this God. As you might guess, these bishops believe this God is all—and I mean all!—about the grace of acceptance.

Third, some key bishops are progressive in their moral theology, or at least they have progressive sympathies. They have clearly taken sides in the current church struggle; they do all they can to support the progressive cause; and they are all too willing to intimidate the more evangelical and orthodox bishops on the Council of Bishops.

And fourth, more than a few bishops lead in this way because of an articulated, or assumed, organizational calculation. This is what they figure: If they play the middle in this disagreement in their church, if they “reach out” to the progressives and the moderates and the traditionalists, if they try to please as many United Methodists as possible, if they create as many moral choices as possible for clergy and laity in the church, if they offend as few United Methodists as possible, if they work hard to “accommodate diversity,” if they talk incessantly about the “unity” of the church (without substantive reference to doctrine, scripture, or truth), then they and their ministries will hold the United Methodist Church together. Instead, their goal of accommodation is leading to a slow, continual erosion of the church.

Read it all.

Kenya is rapidly becoming one of the major destinations for child sex tourism.

According to ECPAT UK, an organisation that campaigns against child trafficking, at least 30,000 Kenyan children are being exploited in the sex industry. Their report goes on to describe some of the reasons for the endemic nature of the crime:

“It is well recognised that local men and those from neighbouring countries sexually exploit Kenyan children, but sex tourists, both men and women, are also active in the country. Activists believe the rise in the sex tourism industry is the result of the weak application of the law and the corruption of some officials, which allows offenders to commit abuses against children with impunity….”

Faith-based projects with strong values predicated on the dignity of all human beings and with concern for the protection of the most vulnerable from exploitation are best placed to succeed where overall funding is limited, and governmental and local community motivation is low due to apathy, corruption, and public taboos about discussing issues of sex.

The Centre for Compassion, Rehabilitation and Development in Athi River, near Nairobi, is an encouraging example of such a project. It is part of the youth ministry programme of the Anglican Diocese of Machakos, whose Bishop, Joseph Mutungi, is concerned about pervasive indoctrination and sexual exploitation of young people in Kenya, and wants to offer an opportunity for transformation through Christ and a return to Bible-based values.

Read it all (may require subsciption).

A vicar offered the hand of friendship to a bike thief after catching him trying to break into his garden shed.

The Reverend Christopher Rogers was working in the shed when he heard someone rattling the handle on the door, and opened it to come face-to-face with burglar Christopher Clarke.

The vicar and Star Wars fan, of All Hallows Church in Bow, chased Clarke and attempted to take his picture to give to police.

But when he spotted the thief loitering outside his home the next day, Mr Rogers told him: “If you ever need help, knock on my front door, not the shed,” and shook his hand.

Read it all.

The challenge of solidarity is the challenge to care for those with whom we have connections. Because we’re human. In the age of social media that is essentially the whole world. That’s an extraordinary thing isn’t it. When my grandmother was first back from India where her father was working, she wrote to him – and she got a letter back weeks later. And now she would be Facetiming him! And the fact that I’m in a WhatsApp group means I know a great deal more about the eating habits of my latest grandson. And thus the culture of sensing loss must be developed not so as to paralyse us before the endless suffering of human beings, but to call us to belong to one another.

A friend of mine, a bishop in the Congo, was asked about the number of refugees in the area where he lives. He said: “Oh, around two million.” When I asked him how he coped, what he did in the face of such unmeetable needs, he said, “We do what we can, what God enables us to do.” That is as good a definition of solidarity as Donne’s.

Solidarity is a value which resists gross inequality but seeks for the gain of others so that all may gain. Despite Donne’s words about a bit of Europe going missing, he is not being called in aid of resistance to Brexit, but rather of commitment to finding a new way in which as a country we are bound to the rest of the world.

And finally, another word, far more spoken of than acted on, is subsidiarity. The principal is simple. All actions and decisions in any group or organisation should be taken at the lowest possible level, at the most local level. It sounds obvious, but everything militates against it, especially our growing capacity in information technology and in systems.

Read it all.

Islamist group Boko Haram is increasingly forcing children to carry out suicide bombings – often drugging them before missions, according to UNICEF.

At least 117 suicide attacks have been carried out by young people in the Lake Chad basin region since 2014, with nearly 80% of the bombs strapped to girls, a new report says.

UNICEF’s Marie-Pierre Poirier said the mere sight of children at checkpoints and markets was sparking fear – meaning almost 1,500 children were detained last year across Nigeria, Cameron, Niger and Chad.

Ms Poirier said: “These children are victims, not perpetrators. Forcing or deceiving them into committing such horrific acts is reprehensible.”

Read it all.

Palm Sunday this year was a sad one. As I was going to celebrate Palm Sunday at All Saints Cathedral, Cairo, I heard the news of the explosions at Mar Girgis [St George’s] Coptic Orthodox Church in Tanta, in the middle of the Nile Delta area. During the Service, I heard of another explosion at St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria. The outcome of these terrorist attacks is that 45 were killed and 129 injured, some of whom were Muslim policemen and guards. Sadness overshadowed all Palm Sunday celebrations all over Egypt.

Intensive security measures and regulations have been made since this last Saturday. This included security personnel emptying all the streets around the churches and cathedrals of cars with extra policemen and sniffer dogs checking all church buildings and worshippers before Services start. I believe these measures were done to safeguard all church buildings in the country. Although the security was very tight, the evildoers have their own ways and it is extremely difficult to achieve 100 per cent security. This was also the case behind the recent terrorist attacks in Sweden, Britain, Germany and France.

Both terrorist attacks were done by suicide bombers. In Tanta, the suicide bomber succeeded to enter the Church, while in Alexandria, the metal detector gates beeped as the bomber was going through and to avoid being arrested, he detonated the bomb.

As I am writing these words, the burial of the Coptic Orthodox martyrs from the Church in Alexandria are being held at Mar Mina Monastery in a mass grave.

Read it all.

Mr Dreher, who advocates the second of these two responses, disapproves of the Church of England’s frequent accommodations with secular society. I do not. Like many atheists, agnostics and searchers, I find myself rather drawn to a church that, however fitfully, seems to be trying to stay open to ideas, differences and influences outside.

Connecting a religion and the culture within which it lives, the metaphor of a length of elastic is illuminating. The two may diverge, but each exerts a pull on the other. In its long, turbulent history, the church has sometimes run ahead of secular culture, sometimes lagged behind. It has a proud record in questions such as the abolition of slavery; in education, welfare and prison reform it has sometimes lit the way. On overseas aid and concern for the homeless, the church has led where secular society first looked away.

On the other hand, the church has had a chronically difficult relationship with the advancement of science, and, in recent centuries, has had to be dragged reluctantly to a recognition that religion is not the seat of learning about the material world. Wherever sex or gender are involved, the church has tended to lag a good few paces behind the rest of society. Mr Dreher might disagree, but I think that — pulled by secular society and with the elastic often stretched very tight — the church’s agonised progress towards the recognition of divorce and the acceptance of contraception (with of course powerful pockets of resistance among Roman Catholics) has been good for the world. Though I’m not myself opposed to abortion, I think Christianity’s anxiety about careless disregard for human life has also been good for the world.

Read it all.

The collapse of religion in Britain has been perhaps the most striking feature of the last generation. The sheer pace of the decline has been recorded by Damian Thompson in this magazine: church pews are emptying at the rate of 10,000 people per week. In 1983, some 40 per cent of the population declared itself Anglican. Now, it’s 17 per cent. To be a practising Christian in the West now is to belong to a minority.

How, then, should believers adapt to a society that is not just unsupportive but often hostile to their beliefs? In his influential 1981 book After Virtue, the Scottish moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre warned that the Enlightenment’s inability to provide a binding and authoritative source of morality to replace the Christian–Aristotelian one it discarded had left the contemporary West adrift. He likened our age to the era of the Roman Empire’s fall — a comparison that Pope Benedict XVI has also made.

The old believers, MacIntyre wrote, need to respond. Which means to stop trying to ‘shore up the imperium,’ and instead build ‘local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us’. MacIntyre famously concluded by saying that we in the West await ‘another — doubtless very different — St Benedict’.

Read it all.

O God our heavenly Father, who to redeem the world didst deliver up thine only Son to be betrayed by one of his disciples and sold to his enemies: Take from us, we beseech thee, all covetousness and hypocrisy; and so strengthen us, that, loving thee above all things, we may remain steadfast in our faith unto the end; through him who gave his life for us, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

But I call upon God; and the LORD will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he will hear my voice. He will deliver my soul in safety from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me.

–Psalm 55:16-18

Our 3 dogs–Toy maltese, puggle and black lab #nationalpetday #dogs #photos pic.twitter.com/TdbDGKG3GS

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 11, 2017