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.

Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, he who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless some one interprets, so that the church may be edified.

Now, brethren, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how shall I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will any one know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves; if you in a tongue utter speech that is not intelligible, how will any one know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning; but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselves; since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

–1 Corinthians 14:1-12

I am bold to tell you that my Master’s riches of Divine Grace are so unsearchable that He delights to forgive and forget enormous sin! The bigger the sin the more Glory to His Grace! If you are over head and ears in debt, He is rich enough to discharge your liabilities. If you are at the very gates of Hell, He is able to pluck you from the jaws of destruction. So mighty is His Mercy that no case did ever exceed His power to save or ever will! I will challenge you to a contest with regard to my dear Lord and Master, that if you will sit down and think the best and largest thoughts you can of Him, you will not think Him to be so good and loving as He really is! If you will try and wish for the largest blessings you can conceive, you shall not be able to wish for such blessings as He is prepared to bestow! And if you will open your mouth wide and make a request for the greatest favor that ever a human being asked of God or man, you shall not ask for a tenth of what He is prepared to give!

–from a sermon in 19874

'Spurgeon: A Testimonial' by Bob Thomas https://t.co/pPtdLGh47R pic.twitter.com/0G4Sg6Pmwl

— Banner of Truth (@BannerofTruth) November 10, 2018

The influence of his mother is never far away in Owen’s work. Likewise, his interest in religion is often just below the surface. Anthem for Doomed Youth describes a funeral held on the battlefield rather than in a church, opening with the line: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?/ — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.” Another poem, At a Calvary near the Ancre, a tributary of the Somme, links the sacrifice on the battlefield with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and other New Testament references:

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

Wilfred was brought up in Birkenhead and Shrewsbury, the family moving around with Thomas’s dispiriting work as a clerk and later a station master with a railway company. He was educated at Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury Technical School. As a boy he enjoyed swimming in mountain pools, reading Oscar Wilde and wearing a favourite green suit. Before joining the army he had floppy hair.

Already he was writing poetry, taking inspiration from the work of John Keats, whose house at Teignmouth he visited in 1911 while on holiday with an aunt and uncle in nearby Torquay. He marked the occasion with a sonnet. According to Stallworthy, “Owen warmed to the sensuality and musicality of the older poet, and Keats’s physicality (heightened by his study of anatomy and experience of illness) accorded with his apprentice’s own precocious awareness of the human body.”

Read it all (subscription required).

A belated obit for Wilfred Owen https://t.co/15pKgCJaXN

— Nigel Farndale (@nigelfarndale) November 10, 2018

The Elder Sophrony once described this by saying, “The way up is the way down.” The spiritual life is a paradox. The excellence of the Pharisees was met with condemnation from Christ: they could not see their own emptiness. The emptiness of the weak and “sinful” was met with mercy and healing. Their acknowledged weakness made the working of the power of God effective in their lives.

What passes for a “moral life” in our culture, is little more than the successful internalization of middle-class behavior. “I’m doing ok,” we think. It is quite common for those who are “doing ok,” to feel generally secure and superior to those who fail to do so. In earlier modern centuries, this modest morality was sufficient to earn someone the title of “Christian.” It meant nothing more than being a gentleman.

It is necessary, I think, to see the emptiness of our efforts (moral futility). Just as we cannot make ourselves to live, neither do we make ourselves better persons. An improved corpse is still a corpse. Our repentance is born out of the revelation of our emptiness and the futility of life apart from God. St. Gregory of Nyssa once said, “Man is mud that has been commanded to become a god.” It is the impossibility of that task that allows the heart to cry, “Have mercy on me!”

It is for this same reason that the lives of saints are never marked by a saint’s awareness of his improvement. Like St. Paul, the authentic witness of the saints is their self-perception as the greatest of sinners.

Read it all.

A United Church minister who had faced an unprecedented ecclesiastical court hearing over her professed atheism is no longer in danger of a defrocking after the two sides reached an agreement in the long-running case.

In an unexpected development this week, Rev. Gretta Vosper and the church settled ahead of what some had dubbed a “heresy trial,” leaving her free to minister to her east-end Toronto congregation.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” Vosper said in an interview Friday. “We’ll be out from underneath that heavy cloud. Now we’ll be able to really fly.”

The settlement, the terms of which are confidential, came during what was supposed to be a week of routine preliminary motions ahead of the full hearing later in the month.

Read it all.

Atheist United Church minister keeps her job; 'heresy trial' called off https://t.co/uPbLB4RdAu pic.twitter.com/7pBZd57YCI

— National Post (@nationalpost) November 10, 2018

Not knowing, therefore, what he was bound to think concerning the incarnation of the Word of God, and not wishing to gain the light of knowledge by researches through the length and breadth of the Holy Scriptures, he might at least have listened attentively to that general and uniform confession, whereby the whole body of the faithful confess that they believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son , our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. By which three statements the devices of almost all heretics are overthrown. For not only is God believed to be both Almighty and the Father, but the Son is shown to be co-eternal with Him, differing in nothing from the Father because He is God from God , Almighty from Almighty, and being born from the Eternal one is co-eternal with Him; not later in point of time, not lower in power, not unlike in glory, not divided in essence: but at the same time the only begotten of the eternal Father was born eternal of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. And this nativity which took place in time took nothing from, and added nothing to that divine and eternal birth, but expended itself wholly on the restoration of man who had been deceived : in order that he might both vanquish death and overthrow by his strength , the Devil who possessed the power of death. For we should not now be able to overcome the author of sin and death unless He took our nature on Him and made it His own, whom neither sin could pollute nor death retain. Doubtless then, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of His Virgin Mother, who brought Him forth without the loss of her virginity, even as she conceived Him without its loss.

But if he could not draw a rightful understanding (of the matter) from this pure source of the Christian belief, because he had darkened the brightness of the clear truth by a veil of blindness peculiar to himself, he might have submitted himself to the teaching of the Gospels. And when Matthew speaks of the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham Matthew 1:1, he might have also sought out the instruction afforded by the statements of the Apostles. And reading in the Epistle to the Romans, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the Holy Scripture concerning His son, who was made unto Him of the seed of David after the flesh Romans 1:1-3, he might have bestowed a loyal carefulness upon the pages of the prophets. And finding the promise of God who says to Abraham, In your seed shall all nations be blessed Genesis 12:3, to avoid all doubt as to the reference of this seed, he might have followed the Apostle when He says, To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He says not and to seeds, as if in many, but as it in one, and to your seed which is Christ Galatians 3:16 . Isaiah’s prophecy also he might have grasped by a closer attention to what he says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is interpreted God with us. And the same prophet’s words he might have read faithfully. A child is born to us, a Son is given to us, whose power is upon His shoulder, and they shall call His name the Angel of the Great Counsel, Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the age to come. And then he would not speak so erroneously as to say that the Word became flesh in such a way that Christ, born of the Virgin’s womb, had the form of man, but had not the reality of His mother’s body. Or is it possible that he thought our Lord Jesus Christ was not of our nature for this reason, that the angel, who was sent to the blessed Mary ever Virgin, says, The Holy Ghost shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you: and therefore that Holy Thing also that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God Luke 1:35, on the supposition that as the conception of the Virgin was a Divine act, the flesh of the conceived did not partake of the conceiver’s nature? But that birth so uniquely wondrous and so wondrously unique, is not to be understood in such wise that the properties of His kind were removed through the novelty of His creation. For though the Holy Spirit imparted fertility to the Virgin, yet a real body was received from her body; and, Wisdom building her a house Proverbs 9:1, the Word became flesh and dwelt in us , that is, in that flesh which he took from man and which he quickened with the breath of a higher life.

–Letter 28.II

Feast of ST. LEO THE GREAT (c. 400-461).

"The Child, the Lord Jesus Christ . . . Word in our flesh, Wisdom in infancy, Power in weakness, and in true Man, the Lord of Majesty."

++Leo the Great pic.twitter.com/y267F6H3Ub

— St. Francis Anglican (@SaintFrancisREC) November 10, 2018

O Lord our God, grant that thy Church, following the teaching of thy servant Leo of Rome, may hold fast the great mystery of our redemption, and adore the one Christ, true God and true Man, neither divided from our human nature nor separate from thy divine Being; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Love this from a sermon by Leo the Great: "For all, baptised in Christ, are made kings by the sign of the cross." #baptism #dignity pic.twitter.com/FtC1rdEADv

— Fr Craig Huxley SCP (@CraigJHuxley) November 10, 2018

O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of truth, Who art in all places, and finest all things, the treasure of blessings, and giver of life, come and abide in us. Cleanse us from all impurity, and of Thy goodness save our souls.

–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)

For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up; but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another…

Psalm 75:6-7

Throughout the 1930s Christian leaders played down the differences between Western democracies and the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Charles Clayton Morrison, editor of the Christian Century, denounced a potential Anglo-American alliance as “a war for imperialism.” Harry Emerson Fosdick, the popular social-gospel minister at New York’s Riverside Church, warned that American involvement in the war against Nazism would be “a colossal and futile disaster.”

Some Christian thinkers repented their pacifism as the Nazi blitzkrieg enveloped Europe. Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, on launching the magazine Christianity and Crisis, excoriated liberal churchmen for evading the problem of radical evil: “This utopianism contributed to the tardiness of the democracies in defending themselves against the perils of a new barbarism.” Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, who fought in France during the Great War, told a friend on the eve of World War II that “death would be much better than to live through another war.” Nevertheless, he saw no moral alternative in a world ravaged by the will to power.

“We know from the experience of the last twenty years,” Lewis wrote in 1944, “that a terrified and angry pacifism is one of the roads that lead to war.” It is a truth that bears repeating as the world reflects on the tragedy of World War I.

Read it all.

The @WSJ – What #WWI Taught the #Clergy. ‘A terrified and angry #pacifism,’ #CSLewis wrote, ‘is one of the roads that lead to #war.’ https://t.co/9faO9jSB8R @CSLewisInst

— TXcyclist72 (@TXcyclist72) November 10, 2018

The bishops appear here to be following the lead of The Episcopal Church in the United States, which others in the Anglican Communion believed tore the fabric of the Communion and damaged relations, since TEC effectively said ‘We are going to do what we are going to do, and not be hindered by the views of others’. I think the citing of the Church in Wales in the Ad Clerum is highly provocative in this regard, since the bishops there have decided to offer provision for blessing SSM even where their Synod held back. It seems that the bishops regards Christian unity, both within the diocese and between other dioceses and wider Church of England teaching as secondary to their desire to do something. Once more, it is hardly a position which reflects ‘humility’ or ‘some hesitation’.

The whole letter invites the question: ‘Do any of these bishops actually believe in the Church of England’s current teaching on marriage, teaching which, in their ordination vows, they committed not only to uphold, but to teach?’ It is difficult to offer any other answer than ‘No’, and this in turn invites the question of how they expect those who do believe this teaching to respond….

I confess that I searched the Ad Clerum in vain for any clue that any of this teaching of Paul had shaped any of the thinking that the bishops presented—and since Paul explicitly mentions sexual ethics here, you might have expected at least some reference to it. For Paul, the inclusive love of God, and our love for one another, are rooted in this transformation and call to holiness that we have met in the face of Christ. The unity of love flows out of this shared understanding of what God has done for us in Christ, and what we therefore have to offer the world.

The bishops don’t appear to set much store by unity; their agenda takes priority. Holiness doesn’t get a mention; what matters is being ‘authentic’. The wider view of Christians through history and around the world on this matter cannot hold back their sense of urgency to change. And the apostolic message we find in Paul does not constrain them or shape their thinking, at least as far as this letter demonstrates.

If they are signalling here that they are departing from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, why would anyone in the diocese who remains part of that church not now seek alternative episcopal oversight? Indeed, one might wonder whether the letter is not intended to provoke just that.

Read it all (my emphasis).

A formal complaint has been made against the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, the Very Revd Dr Martyn Percy. He will have to appear before a tribunal to defend himself, and may be removed from office.

The Cathedral Chapter and the college’s Governing Body, having seen the evidence presented by the complainants, have agreed that there is a case to answer, which, if proved, could constitute good cause for the removal of the dean from office. It is understood that there is a range of views on the issue in the Chapter.

No details of the complaint have been made public, but it is believed to relate to an issue of poor governance raised by Dr Percy, including the setting of senior salaries at Christ Church, among them his own.

The tribunal process itself raises further questions about governance. It is understood that Dr Percy was given no opportunity to challenge any of the evidence against him. Dr Percy is not talking to the press, but a college insider said: “Chapter and Governing Body did not invite the Dean to give any response to the complaint, or put forward any documents of his own before making their decision.”

Read it all.

In the famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus tells his followers to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.” But what does this look like in the modern workplace? How are working Christians, from the boardroom to the classroom, heeding this call from the New Testament? In Barna’s recently released study on vocation, produced in partnership with Abilene Christian University, we found encouraging signs that Christians are living out their faith with integrity. Previously on Barna.com, we’ve covered data about the sacred value Christians perceive in their professions, the challenges working parents face and the Church’s important role in encouraging faith and work integration. Here, we’ll look at the specific values and virtues that define today’s Christians’ work ethic.

Encouragingly, working Christians say they hold to standards and virtues of professional integrity that represent the Church well. They are rooted in a conviction that Christians should act ethically (82%), speak the truth (74%) and demonstrate morality (72%). On an even more spiritual level, respondents say working Christians should make friends with non-Christians (66%), withstand temptation (59%) and do excellent work in an effort to bring glory to God (58%). Most believe people of faith should be guided by an attitude of humility (63%) and service (53%), while also looking out for others by speaking out against unfairness or injustice in the workplace (53%) and bringing grace and peace to others (48%). The trend is clear: most employed Christians want to do good in their places of work—but not always in a way that stands out. They appear less inclined to see it as their responsibility to be influential: one-third believes they should help mold the culture of their workplace (35%). In addition, only one-quarter says sharing the gospel is a responsibility (24%), pointing to a general wariness of speaking explicitly about faith, an attitude not uncommon in today’s climate. However, the more exemplary Christian workers in this study show more spiritual boldness with a higher willingness to share the gospel than the average Christian worker.

Read it all.

Barna: What Faith Looks Like in the Workplace. Encouragingly, working Christians say they hold to standards and virtues of professional integrity that represent the Church well. https://t.co/pK0KiaJITp

— Randy Bell (@RandyMBell) November 5, 2018

I believe that America needs a European-style social safety net. I also believe that we have an epidemic in our country, not of toxic masculinity, but of entitlement. Demands and unilateral action have taken the place of debate. It’s a bipartisan epidemic, and it’s not gender specific.

I wish we could #cometogether.

Read it all.

America’s real epidemic? Entitlement via @FT
https://t.co/ZB4YIgDr5z

— Rana Foroohar (@RanaForoohar) November 8, 2018

Lift up our souls, O Lord, to the pure, serene light of thy presence; that there we may breathe freely, there repose in thy love, there may be at rest from ourselves, and from thence return, arrayed in thy peace, to do and bear what shall please thee; for thy holy name’s sake.

At that very hour some Pharisees came, and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ”˜Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ”˜Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

–Luke 13:31-35

Keep our high school students in prayer this weekend…

Read it all.

The complaint contends Strode and Gonzalez harassed Lizarraga through 2015 because of his Islamic beliefs, at times referring to him as a terrorist and calling him other derogatory names, and complained he was “too slow” due to his medical condition..

“Mr Strode and/or Mr. Gonzalez often told the plaintiff, ‘Why don’t you quit?’ or ‘You are going to get fired anyway,’ ” the lawsuit alleges.

After Lizarraga’s work restrictions were lifted, Strode and Gonzalez increased his workload and assigned him tasks that should have been undertaken by other workers, says the complaint.

“Despite this unreasonable and unfair workload, plaintiff still completed it, ” according to the suit. “Still, Mr. Strode and Mr. Gonzalez would unjustly complain to the plaintiff that he was too slow and continued to tell him he should quit.”

Read it all.

On Friday Oct. 26, the highest governing body of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (“ECCT”) — its Annual Convention — changed the internal governance of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Darien putting the church directly under the authority of the Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas, Bishop Diocesan. This action was taken as a result of the refusal of its elected lay leaders to participate in reconciliation efforts with its Rector, the Rev. Canon George Kovoor.

The action changed St. Paul’s status in ECCT from a “Parish” to a “Worshiping Community,” which puts it now under the exclusive supervision, direction, and control of Bishop Douglas. While the change in status does not affect the worship life or the property of St. Paul’s, the change ended the authority of the previous lay leaders of the church, the Vestry and Wardens, whose job it had been to oversee the property and business affairs of St. Paul’s.

St. Paul’s is one of more than 165 Episcopal Parishes and Worshiping Communities in ECCT, spread across the state. The life of all ECCT Parishes and Worshiping Communities, as well as church-related actions by the bishops, priests, deacons, and elected lay leaders, are governed by church laws known as “Canons.” The Canons require that “Every Parish . . . live within a system of support and accountability that links its life and ministry to that of the Bishops and with those of other Parishes in the Diocese.” The Canons also require that lay leaders of a Parish comply with a godly judgment of the Bishop, and authorize changing a Parish to a Worshiping Community if the leaders refuse.

Read it all.

Statistics from st paul's episcopal church in Darien #connecticut #religion #parishministry #usa pic.twitter.com/7Ioshckb3r

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 8, 2018

A seismic shakeup in the South Carolina political landscape reverberated nationwide Tuesday night.

While the Lowcountry’s 1st Congressional District race garnered attention for months as a potentially competitive contest, Democrat Joe Cunningham’s victory over Republican Katie Arrington still stunned many political experts.

Dave Wasserman, the top U.S. House editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, sized up the result in a district Trump won easily in 2016 as the second biggest Democratic upset of the night nationwide.

Read it all.

A trivia question for you- when was the last time we had a First District Congressman with a BEARD- before Joe Cunningham? pic.twitter.com/7WwZUO0Vwv

— Bill Sharpe (@BillSharpelive5) November 8, 2018

A Dutch “positivity trainer” has launched a legal battle to change his age and boost his dating prospects.

Emile Ratelband, 69, wants to shift his birthday from 11 March 1949 to 11 March 1969, comparing the change to identifying as being transgender.

“We live in a time when you can change your name and change your gender. Why can’t I decide my own age?” he said.

A local court in the eastern city of Arnhem is expected to rule on the case within four weeks….

Read it all.

Regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative poets in the English language, Gerard Manley Hopkins’s revolutionary work had an influence on T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and W.H. Auden — despite being completely unknown to the wider public in his lifetime.

Now a priceless archive of his work and hand-written notes and letters has been saved for the nation.

Kept by his friend, the then much more celebrated poet Robert Bridges, one document in the trove suggests he did not rate Hopkins’s work as first class at the time.

The collection also includes Hopkins’s so-called ‘A’ manuscript of 74 of his poems, many of them written in Hopkins’s own hand.

Tragically, he died young — of typhoid, in Dublin, aged just 44 in 1889 — whereas his friend Bridges lived on well into the 20th century, becoming Poet Laureate.

The literary gold mine has been acquired by the nation through the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme (AIL), which allows people to hand over artworks to cover inheritance tax.

Read it all.

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on this day in 1844. Celebrating the Jesuit poet's life & work: http://t.co/6j7cWJnRkg pic.twitter.com/vlGUYhICqv

— America Magazine (@americamag) July 28, 2015

O Sweet Jesu, increase our faith daily in us more and more; that at the last, through Thy goodness, we may be made perfect and strong men in Thy holy religion, and show ourselves both before Thee and before the world truly faithful, by bringing forth plenty of good works, unto the glory and honour of Thy Name.

–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)

In thee, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline thy ear to me, and save me! Be thou to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Upon thee I have leaned from my birth; thou art he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of thee. I have been as a portent to many; but thou art my strong refuge.

–Psalm 71:1-7

The following message from Bishop Mark Lawrence was sent to the Diocese on November 7, 2018.

Dear Friends,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; and with abiding gratitude for the partnership we share in the gospel.

I write to inform you that on Monday, November 19 there will be yet another step on this long legal journey in the State case. Beginning at 10:00 a.m. in the State Courthouse in Orangeburg the Honorable Edgar W. Dickson will hear arguments on the various motions before him. Please pray for wisdom and clarity for our legal team, particularly Mr. Alan Runyan, Ms. Henrietta Golding, and Mr. Mitch Brown. Pray also for Judge Dickson as he decides upon the many issues before him. Indeed, pray also for those who stand opposed to us, ECUSA/ECSC, as our Lord has taught us to do.

Perhaps it will not escape your attention that this court date falls just a few days before Thanksgiving Day. In spite of the many challenges we have faced in recent months we have much for which to give thanks. Indeed, as the Holy Scriptures remind us,

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7)

So please note how the apostle teaches us to knit and interlace our petitions and requests with prayers of thanksgiving. It is astonishing just how enkindling of faith such grateful prayer can be.

Yours in Christ,

(The Right Reverend) Mark J. Lawrence
Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina

Polling throughout the year has shown that white, college-educated men are now essentially a swing group, available to either party and tilting, in fact, slightly toward Democratic candidates.

These men account for nearly one in five voters in competitive House districts, polling shows, and so their candidate choices could be enough to provide the margin of victory in some races on Tuesday.

Politically speaking, this group has traveled a long distance in recent decades. In 1994, 62% of white men with bachelor’s degrees wanted Republicans to control Congress, while 29% preferred Democrats — a net tilt to the GOP of 33 percentage points, Journal/NBC News polling found that year. Today, the picture is far different.

That’s a substantial change, especially when compared with white men who don’t have four-year college degrees. That group, often called working-class white men, remain core supporters of the Republican Party and overwhelmingly back President Trump.

But in 1994, when Journal/NBC News polling started tracking the trend, it was the white men with college degrees who leaned most heavily toward the GOP—as they did for years afterward.

Read it all.

In Tight Races, White Males Are the Swing Voters to Watch https://t.co/1IasrPNER6

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) November 5, 2018

Shortly after the end of World War II Douglas Jay made a comment that summed up the way many people then thought. “The man in Whitehall,” he said,“really does know best.” The war had been won by technological superiority and careful planning, now it was time to apply those resources to refashioning society.

Alan Jacobs describes views of five Christian intellectuals – WH Auden, TS Eliot, CS Lewis, Jacques Maritain and Simone Weil – who worried about the modern technocratic emphasis on efficiency and sought to use the resources of Christianity to create a renewed humanism.

Other people feature as well in what is a wide-ranging and very readable survey of how many Christians were thinking during the years of World War II and especially in the year 1943 when it became apparent that Hitler would be defeated.

Jacobs begins in his native America with an account of the views on education of the president of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and Mortimer Adler of the same university with their concern to give students a broad, humane education and their rejection of pragmatism and positivism and ends with Jaques Ellul’s great work The Technological Society.

Although the five main subjects did not coordinate their thinking, Jacobs makes a good case for arguing that they were all taking a similar line. What he is less successful at doing is arguing that they grasped the real challenge that confronted the world after the war was over.

Read it all.

For once, it all happened more or less as we foresaw — and by “we” I mean risk-averse political commentators who hugged the polling averages and projections tight while resisting both Betomania and the occasional flashbacks to 2016. A good night for Republicans in the Senate. An excellent night for Democrats in the House. The Trumpian Upper Midwest swinging back toward Democrats. Red-state senate voters sticking with the G.O.P. The mobilize-the-base strategy falling just short for Democrats in Florida and Georgia. A rebuke to Trump in the overall returns, but not a presidency-ending repudiation. Two years of chaos and hysteria ending in a return to stalemate.

Between their Senate gains and a few surprising gubernatorial victories Republicans probably have enough consolation prizes to feel O.K. about the outcome. Trump critics on the right will feel a little better than O.K., since now the House can check and investigate our morally challenged president while the Senate keeps confirming conservative judges.

But this election confirms that, contra certain Trump enthusiasts, the #MAGA era in right-wing politics is essentially a defensive era, in which G.O.P. leverages a fortunate Electoral College win and an advantage in the Senate to fill the courts and delay liberal ambitions for a time — but fails, conspicuously, to reap political rewards from the current economic expansion and to build an actual popular majority.

Read it all.

O Lord our God, who dost call whom thou willest and send them whither thou choosest: We thank thee for sending thy servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve thee, the living God; and we entreat thee to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of thy service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

7Nov 739: d. St. Willibrord #Echternach #otd Northumbrian missionary, with wine barrel, 1626 (BM) @PeritiaEditors @VoxHib @17thCenturyLady pic.twitter.com/9MVXPf7F9z

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) November 7, 2016