A bruising church leadership battle comes to an end this weekend when Bishop Hummingfield Charles Nkosinathi Ndwandwe is enthroned as the new bishop of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Mthatha Diocese.

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Given the reality of male human nature, I can think of few cultural messages more destructive — more enabling for sexual predators — than the sexual-revolution ethics that urge indulgence, that often describe sexual relationships as the object of human interaction. It’s as if the sexual revolutionary looks at original sin and says, “Yes please.”

I know the sexual revolutionary objects to my critique. He rightly says that he doesn’t believe that “anything goes.” He erects moral walls against exploitation — the most prominent is consent. But if men fail (and they too often do) when the moral codes are more strict and the call to live a higher purpose is more pronounced, why do sexual revolutionaries believe men will fail less when the moral codes diminish and sexual freedom is considered part of their life’s purpose? Do they not see the linkage between handing out condoms by the armload — and celebrating “sex weeks” in college — and the number of women who feel used, abused, and exploited?

Much of the modern moral struggle is the war between entitlement and obligation. Raise a boy to live for himself, with a sense of entitlement, and he will often unleash that enormous inborn energy in the most destructive of ways. Raise a boy to live for others, with a sense of obligation, and that same energy can build a nation and sustain a culture. We can’t make a perfect world, but we do have a choice. Better or worse? It’s time to recognize and respond to human nature, or — despite the best of intentions — we will continue to choose to be worse.

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Churches are pioneering text giving in an effort to encourage cashless congregations to donate electronically.

One parish of six churches around Rugeley, in the Midlands, is launching the scheme on Sunday, with others set to follow suit.

“People carry less change,” said team rector, the Revd Dr David Evans, “so this gives them a way of giving that’s firmly 21st century and it’s a way that most people pay for these things these days if they are not using cash.”

Dr Evans won’t be throwing the collection plate away just yet, as “regular members expect to give” that way. But instead of there being one moment to give, there will now be three.

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#OTD 1884 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published. pic.twitter.com/AnnD1QBNYs

— Oxford Classics (@OWC_Oxford) December 10, 2017

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the solemn feast of our redemption which is now at hand, may help us both in this present life, and further us towards the attaining of thine eternal joy in that which is to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens,
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels,
praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord!
For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them for ever and ever;
he fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.

–Psalm 148:1-3