On Adriene McNally’s 49th birthday in January, she heard a knock on the door of her modest row-home in Northeast Philadelphia.

She was being served.

“They actually paid someone to come out and serve me papers on a Saturday afternoon,” she says.

The papers were from a government lawsuit that represents something more than just an unwelcome birthday gift — it’s an example of a program the federal government has brought to 19 cities around the country including Brooklyn, Detroit, Miami and Philadelphia: suing to recover unpaid student loans, like the ones McNally owes.

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Criminal hacking groups have repurposed a second classified cyber weapon stolen from US spies and have made it available on the so-called dark web after the success of the WannaCry attack that swept across the globe on Friday.

The hacking tool, developed by the US National Security Agency and codenamed EsteemAudit, has been adapted and is now available for criminal use, according to security analysts.

As with the NSA’s EternalBlue, the tool on which WannaCry was based, EsteemAudit exploits a vulnerability in older versions of Microsoft’s Windows software in the way in which networked machines communicate with each other.

Microsoft issued patches for vulnerable versions of its Windows software over the weekend — though experts warn many organisations have yet to apply them.

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O God, steadfast in the midst of persecution, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: As the martyrs of the Sudan refused to abandon Christ even in the face of torture and death, and so by their sacrifice brought forth a plenteous harvest, may we, too, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today we remember the Martyrs of Sudan pic.twitter.com/b69HSSsneX

— Logos Anglican (@LogosAnglican) May 16, 2014

O God our Father, whose law is a law of liberty: Grant us wisdom to use aright the freedom which thou hast given us, by surrendering ourselves to thy service; knowing that, when we are thy willing bondsmen, then only are we truly free; for Jesus Christ’s sake.

–New Every Morning (The Prayer Book Of The Daily Broadcast Service) [BBC, 1900]

And say to Archippus, “See that you fulfil the ministry which you have received in the Lord.”

–Colossians 4:17

Twelve people who were conceived with sperm from a Dutch fertility center have filed a lawsuit asserting that its longtime director is their biological father, and that over several decades, he swapped donors’ sperm with his own.

The 12 people, and 10 mothers who suspect that their children were conceived using the clinic director’s sperm, filed a lawsuit on Friday asking a court in Rotterdam to give them access to the DNA of the clinic director, Dr. Jan Karbaat, who died last month at 89.

“I’m hoping that the judge will allow us to extract the DNA so we can use it to find out if we are his children,” one plaintiff, Moniek Wassenaar, 36, said in an interview. The 12 people are 8 to 36 years old. Some of the 10 mothers in the suit conceived children who are still minors.

From 1980 to 2009, Dr. Karbaat ran a sperm bank in the rear of his stately yellow brick house in the Bijdorp section of Schiedam, near Rotterdam. He became well known in the field of assisted reproduction. About 10,000 children are estimated to have been conceived at the clinic.

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If someone gets ill in Contanama, Peru—a remote village in the Amazon rainforest—the nearest pharmacy is 50 miles away. The journey takes six hours by road. But medicines can be delivered by a small drone—or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)—to the local doctor in 35 minutes.

This technological breakthrough, like many others in history, was originally designed for use in war. Developed by the United States and the United Kingdom during the Iraq conflict, drones are becoming a mainstay of organizations delivering humanitarian aid to remote developing world communities. For example, last month drones surveyed the damage from coastal flooding in Peru, sending video footage otherwise too difficult to obtain.

The same month, President Donald Trump rolled back rules in order to make drone strikes even easier, including lowering the threshold for civilian casualties and pushing against the theology behind just war theory. Punctuating this shift from Obama-era policies, a disputed drone strike in Syria killed 42 people in mid-March. (The US government says it killed al Qaeda militants, while activists and local residents maintain that it attacked civilians at a mosque.)

Christians have debated whether drones should be used in war at all. The wartime reputation of drones means they are not always welcomed in aid efforts either.

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Last month’s election was held to find a successor for Bishop William Anderson, who announced in late 2015 his plans to retire.

The house’s decision has to do with Worley’s views on his involvement with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), a collection of theologically conservative churches that was originally a mission of the Anglican Province of Rwanda.

In 2007, Worley, who was born and raised in the U.S., planted a church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as a missionary for the Anglican Province of Rwanda. (At some point after Worley left, that church joined the Anglican Church in North America, another grouping of conservative Anglican churches.)

The bishops began to discuss Worley’s views after a review of his service for AMiA, which, according to the statement, he performed “under license from the Province of Rwanda in the geographical jurisdiction of The Episcopal Church without permission of the Episcopal Church.”

“After many open and prayerful conversations, the majority of the House concluded that within the past five years the Rev. Worley has held—and continues to hold—views contrary to the Discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada,” Archbishop John Privett, metropolitan of the province, is quoted as saying.

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Academic Stephen Bullivant said that the growth in non-religious people has slowed and Anglicanism has seen a small uptick since 2013.

The professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in Twickenham said that the church was recovering after losing a lot of believers after the publication of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in 2006.

He also said that a rise in patriotism might be linked to greater pride in Christianity among some groups.

“People see Christianity as an expression of Englishness. There has been more rhetoric around Britain being a Christian nation….”

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Kierkegaard, born OTD in 1813, on why we conform, the individual vs. the crowd, and the minority's power https://t.co/fAqSENFUyz pic.twitter.com/uKzxLRKN93

— Brain Pickings (@brainpickings) May 5, 2017

The second gift Kierkegaard gives the church is the withering power of his attacks on the established church in Denmark, including its dominant theology, its institutional structure, and its pastors. This stance is the focus of Kierkegaard’s polemical writings in which he became enmeshed during the last years of his life. He was offended by a theology that turned Christianity into a form of philosophical Hegelianism (Kierkegaard’s charge against the popular professor H. L. Martensen), by culturally and politically sanctioned church leaders (embodied for Kierkegaard by Bishop J. P. Mynster), and by anti-institutional populist forms of religion that made an idol of the masses (Kierkegaard’s view of the pastor-educator Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig). As Kierkegaard saw it, these manifestations of bourgeois faith lured Danes away from Jesus’ radical call to discipleship. Caught up in the crowd of a culturally sanctioned faith, Christians were saved from the offensive but necessary movement of throwing themselves as sinners on God’s mercy.

Although Christianity in 21st-century America is far from that of 19th-century Denmark, it is not only in Kierkegaard’s day that pastors were guilty of preaching in a way that “tones down, veils, suppresses, omits some of what is most decisively Christian” (as Kierkegaard put it in an 1854 newspaper article following Mynster’s death). Refusing on his deathbed to receive holy communion from a clergyman, Kierkegaard complained about a church that was beholden to the state, a church in which “the pastors are civil servants of the Crown.” Today the co-opting of the church comes from other directions. Fear of numerical decline, nostalgia for the way things used to be, or adherence to a political agenda exerts its own pressure toward conformity and security.

And clergy are not the only ones Kierkegaard faults. Pews as well as pulpits are filled with religious complacency:

The New Testament is very easy to understand. But we human beings are really a bunch of scheming swindlers; we pretend to be unable to understand it because we understand very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly at once. . . . I open the N.T. and read: “If you want to be perfect, then sell all your goods and give to the poor and come and follow me.” Good God, all the capitalists, the officeholders, and the pensioners, the whole race no less, would be almost beggars.

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For example, in January of last year, the Primates of the Anglican Communion gathered in Canterbury. With stunning clarity, they overwhelmingly chose to exercise discipline against The Episcopal Church (TEC) of the United States. A commission was established to hold TEC accountable after their decision to officially change marriage to include same-sex marriage. The understanding was that TEC would have three years (until their next General Convention) to repent and turn away from their same–sex agenda.

Following that meeting, TEC was told that their representatives could no longer participate in Ecumenical conversations because they had departed from the Biblical positions of the Anglican Communion. They were also told that they could not participate in discussions or decisions involving doctrine and polity. A panel was put in place that was supposed to monitor TEC and hold them accountable to those decisions, hoping that they would choose repentance by the time they met in their next General Convention.

Instead, Archbishop Welby changed the remit of the Panel that the Primates asked to be put together. Rather than holding TEC’s “feet to the fire,” he instructed them to find ways to keep everyone together in the midst of disagreement. Furthermore, only weeks after the Primates’ meeting in Canterbury, the TEC representatives attended the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Lusaka. During that meeting, TEC participated in all the discussions and decisions about doctrine and polity, both moving at least one measure and voting – all contrary to the dictates of the Primates.

Jubilant at their ability to prevail against the Primates, representatives of TEC were clear that they had attended, participated, and voted, actions clearly in opposition to what the Primates had decided. Most tragically, the Archbishop of Canterbury was vociferous in insisting that all the decisions of the Primates’ gathering had been kept, and that TEC had completely complied – despite the obvious.

It is just as though the Archbishop of Canterbury followed in the footsteps of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty….

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“No good fish goes anywhere without a porpoise” – Lewis Carroll pic.twitter.com/ptE1EnaVRu

— ƑσƖks σғ Hιsтσяү (@FolksOfHistory) August 31, 2015

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a December 2016 bombing at St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church in Cairo, which killed 29 people and injured 47 others.

“They were Coptic Orthodox, but we are one Christian family,” the Anglican Archbishop declared. “One of the amazing things that happened is the forgiveness within the church – forgiveness towards the people who exploded themselves – was a great witness.”

Anis recalled one witness pondering aloud “from what substance are these Christians made? How on Earth do you forgive like this?”

“It was moving to many people,” Anis reported. During the funeral for Christians who died in the Palm Sunday attacks, the Coptic bishop who led the service prayed for the assailants.

“This was in all the newspapers, that the bishop prayed for the terrorists, that is amazing,” Anis noted, contrasting with a presumed response of revenge.

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You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

Walk thou with us, O Christ, in the way, as thou didst with thy disciples, until the day is spent and our journey done; then of thy goodness break with us the bread of eternal life, and grant us the vision of thy face; for thy Name’s sake, world without end.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

When I am afraid, I put my trust in thee. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust without a fear. What can flesh do to me?

–Psalm 56:3-4

Hull’s Holy Trinity Church has been re-dedicated as a minster by the Archbishop of York.

A flotilla of about 20 boats travelled down the Humber into Hull Marina ahead of the outdoor service, with Dr John Sentamu carrying a lantern lit at All Saints Church in Hessle.

The flame was then used to light the Hull Minster candle.

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Soaring performances of songs from “Cats” and “Les Misérables” are unusual fare for a prison. But on May 3rd an inmate at Leicester prison brought an audience to their feet with his renditions. The recital was part of a TEDx conference, a popular lecture series that had never before been held in a British jail. In the midst of a prisons crisis, with violence against inmates and officers at record levels and crippling staff shortages, the event is an encouraging example of smaller efforts to improve conditions.

On a stage covered in prisoners’ art, inmates thundered the words of Shakespeare. An officer recited his own poetry: “I could tell you tales that would make you laugh…tales that would turn your stomach, tales that would break your heart,” he intoned. Organising the event was a logistical nightmare, says Phil Novis, the governor at HMP Leicester. But the enthusiasm of all involved suggests it was worth it.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has completed a 10-day official visit to the Holy Land.

Archbishop Justin Welby and Mrs Caroline Welby travelled to the Holy Land at the invitation of the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, Archbishop Suheil Dawani.

The Archbishop made the long visit, from 2–11 May, to spend time with Anglicans in Jordan, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel – to encourage them, to pray with them, and to learn from them.

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Fr Nithiya Sagayam, national coordinator of the Association of Franciscan Families of India (AFFI), is gravely concerned that the global response to extreme poverty is too low in almost every country while, he says, “corporations continue to grow richer and richer.”

This doesn’t just affect some people and not others, Sagayam believes. “The social security of every last person is at risk,” he says.

As the World Council of Churches (WCC), All Africa Conference of Churches and other partners invite churches, organizations and individuals to join a Global Day of Prayer to End Famine on 21 May, Sagayam said he is grateful for the opportunity for fellowship and public engagement. He believes the Global Day of Prayer to End Famine provides a way of getting in touch with what he describes as “the forgotten people.”

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Give, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy waiting people freedom and strength; that we may be loosed from all our fears, and labor with a steady hand; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.
Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!
Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory!

–Psalm 24:7-10

The world will live on after the end, and that world we don’t know belongs to the martyrs: to priestly witnesses trained in obedience and formed by consuming the body and blood of Jesus; to royal martyrs who learn to fight with tongues and fingers; to prophets who have so deeply listened to God’s word that they can speak it to God, the Church, and the world. It will belong to those with the courage of the Benedictines who rebuilt on the ruins of Rome, and to those with the cunning of the Reformers who renewed Christendom after it had become a graveyard.

Apocalypse means “unveiling,” and the Apocalypse is about the unveiling of Jesus. For us, too, the ultimate outcome of our apocalyptic moment will be a fuller, deeper revelation of the Christ. In Revelation, Jesus is already glorified at the beginning of the book. Before the falling stars, before the beasts and the harlot, before the battles, Jesus stands unveiled before John. The Apocalypse climaxes not in the unveiling of Jesus but in the unveiling of his Bride. It is about the revelation of Jesus Christ in his Bride. What will be unveiled in the world after TEOTWAWKI [“the end of the world as we know it”] is the glory of Jesus shining through his witnesses.

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Abu Dhabi: In a testament to the UAE’s multicultural tolerance, the region’s largest Anglican church is currently being built in Abu Dhabi, with the land for the church donated by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Currently under construction in Musaffah, the All Saints Anglican Church will be able to accommodate over 4,000 worshippers when complete. The church is currently looking to raise Dh8 million to reach its target of Dh20 million, which is the total cost of the church, and it expects to receive its final funding by December.

“At a time when walls are being erected between different faith communities in the world, the UAE continues their tradition of welcoming people of different faiths as a genuine and mature expression of their Islamic hospitality,” said Reverend Andy Thompson, senior chaplain in charge of Anglican churches in the emirate of Abu Dhabi.

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The U.S. has the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world, and 60 percent are preventable. The death of Lauren Bloomstein, a neonatal nurse, in the hospital where she worked illustrates a profound disparity: The health care system focuses on babies but often ignores their mothers.

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In a recent video by America, a national Catholic magazine, McSweeney said his parish, which has 60-plus employees and three other priests, sent representatives to other megachurches around the country to see how they do it.

“The star (of the other churches) is usually the pastor,” McSweeney said the video. “The star here at this megaparish is Jesus Christ.”

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The star (of the othr churches) is usually the pastor.The star here at ths megaparish is Jesus Christ-John McSweeney https://t.co/NAEGHYN5Zt

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 13, 2017

Every Thursday and Friday, Rabbi Moshe Tauber dutifully travels to Manhattan from his home in Monsey, N.Y. The 43-year-old rabbi and father of 12 usually arrives by 5:30 a.m. He drives as far as 25 miles in the city, his eyes focused well above street level. That’s because he sees what nobody else does.

Rabbi Tauber’s job is to keep tabs on the Manhattan eruv, a precisely designated zone that zigzags from 126th Street in Harlem to the bottom of the island and from the Upper East Side to the Lower East Side. Its perimeter is marked by heavy-duty fishing line strung almost invisibly on city light poles 18 feet high, though structural portions of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, the West Side Highway and the Brooklyn Bridge also mark the boundaries.

For many of New York’s observant Jews, their enjoyment of the Sabbath depends on Rabbi Tauber. During Shabbos, which runs from Friday sundown to Saturday night, religious Jews aren’t permitted to carry objects outside the home, as that would constitute work. No bottles of wine and casseroles when visiting friends, not even prayer books and tallit bags. The eruv becomes a lifeline for Orthodox families to be out and about on the holiest day of the week.

Under cover of the eruv, which symbolically extends one’s residence into the public domain, carrying and pushing are kosher.

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Schools may be giving Google more than they are getting: generations of future customers.

Google makes $30 per device by selling management services for the millions of Chromebooks that ship to schools. But by habituating students to its offerings at a young age, Google obtains something much more valuable.

Every year, several million American students graduate from high school. And not only does Google make it easy for those who have school Google accounts to upload their trove of school Gmail, Docs and other files to regular Google consumer accounts — but schools encourage them to do so. This month, for instance, Chatfield Senior High School in Littleton, Colo., sent out a notice urging seniors to “make sure” they convert their school account “to a personal Gmail account.”

That doesn’t sit well with some parents. They warn that Google could profit by using personal details from their children’s school email to build more powerful marketing profiles of them as young adults.

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Really, really funny.

O God, who has given into our hands the ministry to which he has called us, help us this day to fulfill our responsibilities in thy Name with wisdom, cheerfulness and honesty; through Jesus Christ our Lord (slightly edited).

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

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