When…[Festus] had stayed among them not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesare′a; and the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought. And when he had come, the Jews who had gone down from Jerusalem stood about him, bringing against him many serious charges which they could not prove. Paul said in his defense, “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I offended at all.” But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem, and there be tried on these charges before me?” But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried; to the Jews I have done no wrong, as you know very well. If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death; but if there is nothing in their charges against me, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar.” Then Festus, when he had conferred with his council, answered, “You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you shall go.”

–Acts 25:6-12 (my emphasis)

One person has died and a suspect has been transported to a hospital after holding multiple people hostage for hours inside Virginia’s on King restaurant, according to police.

Police say that the hostages are now free and safe.

Around 2:30 p.m., a loud boom, that did not necessarily sound like a gun shot, rang in the area. A person was transported out of Virginia’s on a stretcher. Shortly after, police began breaking down the perimeters and allowing people closer to the scene.

A shooting was first reported at 12:17 p.m. Thursday.

“This was not an act of terrorism,” said Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg. “This was not a hate crime. This was a tragic case of a disgruntled employee.”

Read it all.

The Catholic Church, along with other faith traditions, teaches that marriage is a natural institution established by God to be a permanent union between one man and one woman, intended towards the formation of a family in which children are born and nurtured.

Any legislation that changes this definition of marriage recognised by all the major cultures of the world demands careful consideration by all Australians.

It is vital that we Catholics vote, so that our viewpoint can be heard on this vital public issue.

Its outcome will affect our society and families profoundly in the future.

We understand that ours is not the only viewpoint in our diverse society. Many do not agree with it. Many people see this as an issue about ensuring equality for every and all relationships.

Yes, human rights are important. But so are human responsibilities. We are responsible for the impact of our decisions on future generations.

Read it all.

[Professor Patrick] Parkinson says: “While the case in international human rights law for saying that same-sex marriage is a human right is very weak, the case for protecting religious freedom, and in particular freedom of conscience, is quite overwhelming. There have been numerous bills introduced in parliament to enact same-sex marriage over the last few years and what has been common to most of them has been a minimalist protection for freedom of conscience.”

The plebiscite idea originated with Peter Dutton. Its implementation via the Bureau of Statistics came from Brandis. But it will occur only with the approval of the High Court and nobody can second-guess that outcome. Smith is right when he says his bill has more protections than anything likely to come from a Labor government. But this cannot gainsay the gaping hole left in this pivotal area of our national life and values.

For years the typical response from politicians to the religious freedom issue has been patronising and dismissive, buttressed by the claim that religious ministers would be protected. Any notion that will suffice is ludicrous.

The resistance falls into three categories: those who care only about achieving same-sex marriage; those who think protection around the ceremony is the only issue that matters; and those, like the champions of progressive ideology, who see this social change as an integral step in driving religion from the public square.

Read it all (my emphasis).

The bells of York Minster will be ringing regularly again – after a new band of volunteer bellringers were recruited almost ten months after the previous band was controversially axed.

The cathedral axed its entire team of 30 volunteer ringers last autumn over safeguarding concerns.

More than 17,000 people signed a petition calling for them to be reinstated but the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, backed the decision by the Dean of York, the Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, and chapter.

Read it all.

American pastor Bobby Gruenewald on how he founded the YouVersion Bible app – now downloaded more than 250 million times on smartphones and tablets. Religion is increasingly moving online but the trend has sparked concerns among traditional church-goers

Listen to it all (approximately 2 1/3 minutes).

He sometimes wore jeans and dressed like a “hipster,” and had only a short beard. He was unfailingly courteous and studiously discreet. And it seems that he trained the young men he lured into his terrorist cell to behave in much the same way, carrying on double lives that betrayed little of their real intentions.

Abdelbaki Essati, the shadowy imam who the authorities believe was at the center of last week’s terrorist attacks in and near Barcelona, Spain, appears to have been a master of deception. His associations with jihadists reached back more than a decade, but he managed to evade the scrutiny of authorities and the suspicion of many in Ripoll, the small town in northern Catalonia where he showed up last year to offer his services.

Mr. Essati’s technique, according to terrorism experts, was taken right from the playbook of the Al Qaeda jihadi recruiters with whom he had first come into contact at least 11 years ago. It now appears that he used those methods to carefully select and groom young recruits, but for the Islamic State.

“He was really nice, charming, really polite, but he was too polite, too correct,” said Wafa Marsi, 30, who grew up with the older members of the cell the imam forged in the town.

Read it all.

From here:

“Never, it is safe to say, in the history of the world has a country been as sex-ridden as America is today. And the rest of us, all eagerly emulating the American Way of Life, are going the same way. Sex has become the religion of the most civilized portions of the earth. The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment; the old pagan admonition, Do What Thou Wilt, has superseded the Pauline teaching that, since spirit and flesh lust contrary to one another, Ye Cannot Do the Things That Ye Would Do. In the beginning was the Flesh, and the Flesh became Word. Sex is the mysticism of materialism. We are to die in the spirit to be reborn in the flesh, rather than the other way around. Instead of the cult of the Virgin Mary we have the cult of the sex symbol – the busts, the thighs, the buttocks of a Jean Harlow, a Marilyn Monroe, a Carroll Baker displayed in glossy photographs, on cinema and television screens, to be feasted upon by countless hungry eyes, the physical tension thereby set up being subsequently relieved in autoeroticism or in squirmings and couplings with an available partner. Eyes which launched not a thousand ships, but a vast sea of seminal fluid; mistresses not of kings and great ones, but of the Common Man, who clasps them to him and enjoys their wanton favors in his secret dreams.”

“Even the most ardent advocates of the sexual revolution are inclined to feel that it is not working out quite as it should. Instead of sex-happy citizens of all ages blissfully coupling, psychiatrists and sexologists are besieged by patients eager to pour out their sexual woes. Orgasms have been too little and too late; despite bodies duly sealed and pasteurized, and recommended positions duly taken, the promised delight has failed to materialize. Happiness pursued in accordance with the book has proved elusive. Something must be wrong.”

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Almighty and everlasting God, who didst give to thine apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word: Grant that thy Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God for ever and ever.

It's the feast of St Bartholomew, 'Bartlemas' – a day with some interesting medieval customs https://t.co/HQWD6Znk2q pic.twitter.com/mYtSRu3B6i

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) August 24, 2016

Blessed Lord, who for our sakes wast content to bear sorrow and want and death: Grant to us such a measure of thy Spirit that we may follow thee in all self-denial and tenderness of soul. Help us by thy great love to succour the afflicted, to relieve the needy, to share the burdens of the heavy laden, and ever to see thee in all that are poor and destitute; for thy great mercy’s 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

So I agree with Fr. Martin that an intolerable tension now exists in the Church’s attitude toward sex, but I disagree about how that tension should be resolved. More than Allah or Christ, sex is the great god worshipped across the globe. What one of our greatest Catholic commentators calls the “horny industrial complex” rules the world: selling products, justifying the destruction of families, impelling the transformation of law. Fr. Martin wants the Church to make a more perfect peace with this god. I want it to offer more consistent resistance.

Regrettably, but unavoidably, resisting untruth will require Catholics to be rude. This is why, much as I sympathize with certain points he makes, I reject Fr. Martin’s call for civility. Either the Catholic Church is right in what it teaches about human sexuality, or it is wrong. A great many people are convinced that the latter is the case—and thus that any expression of the Church’s teaching on homosexual acts will be insensitive and disrespectful. There is no phrasing so artful, no speaker so refined, that Catholic teaching can be pronounced without offense.

This seems to be Fr. Martin’s view. As far as I can tell, he has never found words in which to defend Catholic teaching on homosexuality. This fact is striking. If Fr. Martin, with his winning smile and pleasing voice, his rigorous Jesuit formation and gilded Wharton degree, his friendships with celebrities and appointment at the Vatican, cannot find a polite way to express Christian teaching, then no one can. No Catholic priest is more at home in fashionable society. No modern spiritual master is better equipped to make the faith clubbable. Judging by Fr. Martin’s silence, it simply cannot be done. On homosexuality, and not just on homosexuality, Christian teaching inevitably offends.

Read it all.

There are several striking things about this moment.

First, the name. The 2008 Conference was a totally new initiative. It looked forward – it is a Future Conference. The Communion of old had changed irrevocably with events in North America which denied both the clear teaching of the word of God and also the value of Christian unity and fellowship. The Future Conference did not abandon the Communion: it looked to the future and saw what the Communion would have to become if it is to survive.

Second, the location. It was no accident that we were summoned to Jerusalem. Here was the scene of the Saviour’s death and resurrection. In Jerusalem, the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost and the Gospel was first preached. If we were looking and hoping for renewal and courage, symbolically there could be no better place than this. It took us back to our true roots.

Third, the participants. The key thing here is that not only bishops were invited, but clergy and laity, men and women, young and old. To have a future conference of bishops only would be a vote for the past. This was a new thing, a new day.

Read it all.

“The Invisible Women: Naming and Proclaiming the Forgotten Women in Scripture and Church Law” is a book of great consequence.

Through Sister Sandra Makowski’s superb writing, research and scholarship, the poor treatment of women in the Bible, lectionary and local church is brought to new light.

Of course, Makowski writes from a Catholic perspective, but that does not mean there is no food for the rest of Christianity. As a Baptist, I was surprised by the number of things I did not know.

For example, I have never read a book or heard a sermon on Hagar and yet Makowski’s book helped me to see how Hagar becomes more and more important as international conflicts continue to unfold.

Similarly, I knew almost nothing about Huldah, the prophet who lived during the time of Jeremiah

Read it all.

August 23, 2017

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

With the events in Charlottesville now being brought home to Beaufort with the racist graffiti painted on the Community Bowling Center, the people of God must speak out against the evils of racism. Racism is a heresy and a denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we must condemn any group, ideology, or individual that denies that every human being is created in God’s image. As Revelation 7:9 reminds us, Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross has made it possible for every tribe, tongue, and nation to be gathered around the throne of God.

When we are confronted with the events of the past weeks, we should be led by the Lord to a posture of repentance. As Christ followers, we must not only stand against the outward, visible attacks resulting from racism, we must also confront the more subtle forms of racism that may exist within our own hearts. As Paul wrote in Romans 14:13, the Gospel demands that we must never put a “stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.” It is with this humility we must also view our shared history so that our celebrations are not done so at the expense of oppressing others.

The Gospel tears down dividing walls of hostility (Ephesians 2:4) by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. In response to these actions in our community and nation, we want to encourage the people of St. Helena’s to pray and work for the healing of our land….

Read it all.

To this end, I also want to give you an update on where things are within the Diocese of South Carolina. Since I last wrote regarding the recent South Carolina Supreme Court ruling I have met with the Standing Committee and our lead counsel, and, as perhaps you have already heard, we have decided to seek a rehearing from the state court. The filing for rehearing is due on September 1, 2017. Subsequent to this filing, it is assumed The Episcopal Church and its local diocese will then be granted time by the court to respond to our filing. So I want to remind you that this litigation is not over. There are several options for us to pursue and we shall consider them prayerfully and strategically. Please keep our legal team in your daily prayers. Their work is as demanding as it is vital.

Earlier in August our lead counsel, Mr. Alan Runyan, and I met with all the clergy of the diocese at a Special Clergy Day at St. Paul’s, Summerville; then, this last week Canon Lewis and I met with the active priests in each of our six deaneries for in-depth conversations. Your priests are aware of various possibilities and are key resources for you in understanding where we presently stand. But know they also face many challenges. Some of these rectors and vicars (and their spouses and children) live in church housing, as do Allison and I. Many that do not live in rectories are making payments on mortgages. So too, are the lay staff in our congregations and diocese. Some of our congregations are in the midst of capital campaigns or hold debt on their buildings. Frankly, each congregation of the diocese is in a distinct position regarding how this ruling may or may not affect their common life and future. While this is also the case for each rector, vicar or assistant, I have been amazed at the remarkable resilience of our clergy as they face the uncertainty of the future.

Certainly, this ruling has the potential to disrupt their lives and ministry, as well as the ministry and mission of the congregation they serve. Most face questions regarding whether they will lose their church buildings. Yet in the face of these challenges, they have been almost to a person stalwart, steadfast and trusting of God, even as they prayerfully explore the various options before them.

Read it all.

Bishop Lawrence of the Diocese of #Southcarolina Calls 4 a Day of Prayer+Fasting, on August 30 https://t.co/QEN9XsVdj1 #anglican #ministry pic.twitter.com/w0K9Mlbcyq

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) August 23, 2017

Bishop Pete grew up in India, where his father was a missionary. Aged 13, he had already set his sights on becoming a priest, and after studying modern history at Durham took the necessary training in Cambridge.

Ordained in 1987, he completed his first stints as a curate and vicar in the North East – he’s a staunch Newcastle United supporter – before postings in the West Midlands led to the Liverpool job.

“I came from a believing household. I can pinpoint the moment I was converted, at 12 or 13, but before that faith was just the wallpaper.”

He could easily have balked at the prospect of following his father into the church, he agrees.

“Sometimes it works the other way. If your dad wears a dog collar it’s the easiest thing to rebel against.”

Read it all.

Brian McGreevy to join St. Philip’s Charleston #southcarolina staff in a full-time capacity https://t.co/fLfcvkFhr1 #ministry #parishlife pic.twitter.com/gaibDhtl91

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) August 23, 2017

Read it all.

As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economies, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save insofar as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit. Collective activities are, of course, necessary, but this is the end to which they are necessary. Great sacrifices of this private happiness by those who have it may be necessary in order that it may be more widely distributed. All may have have to be a little hungry in order that none may starve. But do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. The mistake is easily made. Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have learned actually to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind – if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else – then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease. There is, in fact, a fatal tendency in all human activities for the means to encroach upon the very ends which they were intended to serve

–CS Lewis the Weight of Glory (New York: HarperOne, 1980 ed. of 1949 original), p. 163 (emphasis mine)

Merciful God, who didst send thy Gospel to the people of Peru through Martin de Porres, who brought its comfort even to slaves; and through Rosa de Lima, who worked among the poorest of the poor; Help us to follow their example in bringing fearlessly the comfort of thy grace to all downtrodden and outcast people, that thy Church may be renewed with songs of salvation and praise; through Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Jesus said to them, “Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?

–Mark 12:24

If there were a list of common complaints about America’s economy, the fact that too few people work would be near the top. Though unemployment is low—only 4.3% in July—the figure does not include those who are jobless either by choice, or because they have given up looking for work. The proportion of those aged between 25 and 54 in work is 79%—lower than in France, where the unemployment rate is more than twice as high. So it is a relief that over the past two years, as the labour market has improved, Americans aged 25 to 54 (prime-age, in the jargon) have been joining the labour force in greater numbers. What is remarkable, however, is that this turnaround has been driven almost entirely by women.

When people think about America’s hidden reserves of labour, they usually point to prime-age men, who have participated in the labour market at ever-lower rates since the 1960s. Things have been particularly bad for less educated men, who have suffered as technological progress and trade have killed off manufacturing jobs. More than one in five prime-age men with a high-school diploma does not work, compared with fewer than one in 11 men with a bachelor’s degree….the top end of the labour market is increasingly promising for women. Even in 2010, America’s working women were about as likely to be managers as men; elsewhere, they were only half as likely. They were also more likely than men to be professionals. Women are now a majority among new college graduates, make up more than half of law students, and are equally represented among freshmen at medical schools. Women in their late 20s and early 30s are responsible for nearly 40% of labour-force growth since prime-age participation bottomed out in August 2015.

Read it all.

One of the largest marijuana companies in the US has bought a California desert town, promising to turn it into a “cannabis-friendly hospitality destination.”

American Green Inc. said it is buying all 80 acres of Nipton, which includes its Old West-style hotel, a handful of houses, an RV park and a coffee shop.

The town’s current owner, Roxanne Lang, said the sale is still in escrow, but confirmed American Green is the buyer.

Read it all.

In the early 1970s, the photographer Bill Yates shot a series of portraits at the Sweetheart Roller Skating Rink in Tampa, Florida. In one, a shirtless teen stands with a large bottle of peppermint schnapps stuck in the waistband of his jeans. In another, a boy who looks no older than 12 poses with a cigarette in his mouth. The rink was a place where kids could get away from their parents and inhabit a world of their own, a world where they could drink, smoke, and make out in the backs of their cars. In stark black-and-white, the adolescent Boomers gaze at Yates’s camera with the self-confidence born of making your own choices—even if, perhaps especially if, your parents wouldn’t think they were the right ones.

Fifteen years later, during my own teenage years as a member of Generation X, smoking had lost some of its romance, but independence was definitely still in. My friends and I plotted to get our driver’s license as soon as we could, making DMV appointments for the day we turned 16 and using our newfound freedom to escape the confines of our suburban neighborhood. Asked by our parents, “When will you be home?,” we replied, “When do I have to be?”

But the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents. The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.

Read it all.

The hacker, known only by his online alias “Profexer,” kept a low profile. He wrote computer code alone in an apartment and quietly sold his handiwork on the anonymous portion of the internet known as the dark web. Last winter, he suddenly went dark entirely.

Profexer’s posts, already accessible only to a small band of fellow hackers and cybercriminals looking for software tips, blinked out in January — just days after American intelligence agencies publicly identified a program he had written as one tool used in Russian hacking in the United States. American intelligence agencies have determined Russian hackers were behind the electronic break-in of the Democratic National Committee.

But while Profexer’s online persona vanished, a flesh-and-blood person has emerged: a fearful man who the Ukrainian police said turned himself in early this year, and has now become a witness for the F.B.I.

“I don’t know what will happen,” he wrote in one of his last messages posted on a restricted-access website before going to the police. “It won’t be pleasant. But I’m still alive.”

Read it all.

Senior politicians, terror experts and Christian leaders will come together for a major two-day conference discussing religious unity in British cities.

The shock of Brexit and the horror of terrorist attacks on London and Manchester have highlighted the need for Christians to take a leading role in transforming UK towns, said event organiser Roger Sutton.

Read it all.

A Booker prize-winning novelist has warned that children will be illiterate within a generation, because of the devastating impact of Twitter.

Howard Jacobson said that the combination of social media and smartphones had changed the nature of communication so completely that even he — a man who once liked nothing better than to curl up with “300 densely packed pages” of a late Henry James novel — now craved interruption.

Within 20 years, “we will have children who can’t read, who don’t want to read”, he said. “I can’t read any more as much as I used to. My concentration has been shot by this bloody screen. I can’t do it now — I want space, I want white pages, light behind the page.”

Read it all (requires subscription).

Bishops have called on the Government to urgently review its benefits freeze after a “deeply disturbing” report found poor working parents did not have the cash needed to look after children.

Low paid families are taking a “double hit” because earnings are failing to keep up with inflation and many welfare payments have been frozen, the Bishop of Gloucester said.

The struggles faced by parents on the national living wage have been laid out in a report by Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

Families working full time are 13% or £59 a week short of the amount needed to provide their children with a minimum standard of living, according to the report.

The Cost Of A Child 2017 found the shortfall for lone and out-of-work of parents was even starker.

Read it all.

Read and look through it all.