In response to some of these developments, a group of nine national Christian charities and one charity representing other faith groups has, for the past three years, been meeting as a coalition by the name of ‘Christians Together Against Loneliness’.

During this time, they have produced a resource called ‘Make A Meal of It’ which provides ideas and tips for churches who are running community lunches aimed at socially isolated older people.

Collectively, they have also engaged with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to raise awareness of the key role of churches and faith groups in addressing loneliness.

This also led to a recent opportunity to meet with the ‘Minister for Loneliness’, Mims Davies MP, to explore opportunities for engagement with faith groups.

The Bible teaches us that we are all to care for those on the margins of society and, by definition, many people struggling with loneliness are often unseen.

This provides a challenge in identifying those most at risk, but also provides an opportunity for us all to be alert and aware of those for whom this could be a part of their day to day lives.

Read it all.

“It is also often the case, particularly in rural areas, that church buildings are the only places to meet within the community.” @LivabilityUK @salvationarmyuk @LinkingLivesUK @FaithActionnet https://t.co/diz5ecvewd

— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) June 21, 2019

The proposals include:

Investment in recruiting and training new ministers – helping dioceses to meet the Church-wide goal of increasing the number of ordinands by 50%; and providing funds towards the costs of an increased number of curates;

Supporting dioceses in making strategic investment in change programmes designed to grow worshipping communities.

The continuation of specific funding to help dioceses to support mission in communities where income levels are low, places of greatest financial need.

Read it all.

Church Commissioners are to vote on providing extra £155m ‘without selling the family silver’https://t.co/FFXKTljJEq

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 22, 2019

First, the nature of the “conflict”. For more than 100 years now, the popular narrative has been that religion has always opposed science: think medieval Church, heliocentrism, Galileo, Darwin, Scopes, etc. Wilberforce’s taunting, according to this viewpoint, was just another example of religious idiocy.

The reality is different. For all his misplaced wit, Wilberforce’s opposition was based on “the principles of inductive science, philosophy, or logic”, as the Gazette put it — and, as Darwin himself knew; for he called the Bishop’s review of On the Origin of Species “uncommonly clever”. This is more typical of the periodic clashes between “science” and “religion” than the Young Earth creationist parody of our day. Not only were such conflicts rarer than popularly imagined, they were usually much more sophisticated and more scientific than we think. It wasn’t simply a case of “but the Bible says . . .”

Second, the context of the conflict. Huxley was a newfangled “scientist”; Wilberforce was an old-school “clerical naturalist”. What happened at Oxford was as much about the former shouldering the latter aside in the social hierarchy of Victorian England as it was a debate about Darwinism. “What [Huxley] has deprecated”, as the Gazette put it, “was authority like the Bishop’s, authority derived from a reputation acquired in another sphere.”

The history of science and religion, like any history of ideas, is coloured by the political, social, and cultural worlds of the time, from the nervous post-Reformation context of Galileo to the sinister eugenic context of the Scopes Monkey Trial. The Wilberforce-Huxley debate was no different. We ignore such context at the cost of historical subtlety.

Read it all.

The uncharted history of science and religion

Researching for a new @BBCRadio4 series prompted @theosnick to question some popular perceptionshttps://t.co/z1xAeShlwu

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 21, 2019

Almighty God, who alone gavest us the breath of life, and alone canst keep alive in us the holy desires thou dost impart; We beseech thee, for thy compassion’s sake, to sanctify all our thoughts and endeavours; that we may neither begin an action without a pure intention nor continue it without thy blessing. And grant that, having the eyes of the mind opened to behold things invisible and unseen, we may in heart be inspired by thy wisdom, and in work be upheld by thy strength, and in the end be accepted of thee as thy faithful servants; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

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

A Pastor’s Prayerbook #Prayer 4 the Day ‘Almighty God, who alone gavest us the breath of life, and alone canst keep alive in us the holy desires thou dost impart; We beseech thee, for thy compassion’s sake, to sanctify all our thoughts and endeavours..’ https://t.co/5hoFhx12Lv pic.twitter.com/gtd70zlMUm

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 21, 2019

The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family–from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.

–1 Samuel 3:8-13

he letter, sent to all clergy, readers and safeguarding officers in the Diocese of Blackburn, came following the release of the recent publication of the reports by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) on the Diocese of Chichester and the Peter Ball case.

That report found that The Church of England’s response to child sex abuse allegations was marked by secrecy and criticised former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord George Carey for supporting the disgraced former Bishop Peter Ball. Ball was jailed in 2015 for 32 months for offences against 18 teenagers and men between the 1970s and the 1990s.

Calling on all church leaders within the diocese to read the report and learn the lessons from it, the letter reads: “The church is one body, so whilst we may not ourselves have been directly involved in the abuse of children and vulnerable adults, we are fellow members of the body with those who have and so we are all called to repentance.

“The church should be the conscience of the nation and yet as the report shows, again and again we have placed the reputation of the institution above the needs of the vulnerable. In addition, when the contemporary church fails to respond properly to allegations from the past, this becomes a form of re-abuse, adding a fresh layer of hurt and harm to those whose lives are already damaged. Trite, formulaic apologies will not do. There has been grave sin within the church, and unless corporately we name, confess and deal with that sin, our mission to the nation is fatally undermined….”

Read it all.

As disaster costs keep rising nationwide, a troubling new debate has become urgent: If there’s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first?

After three years of brutal flooding and hurricanes in the United States, there is growing consensus among policymakers and scientists that coastal areas will require significant spending to ride out future storms and rising sea levels — not in decades, but now and in the very near future. There is also a growing realization that some communities, even sizable ones, will be left behind.

New research offers one way to look at the enormity of the cost as policymakers consider how to choose winners and losers in the race to adapt to climate change. By 2040, simply providing basic storm-surge protection in the form of sea walls for all coastal cities with more than 25,000 residents will require at least $42 billion, according to new estimates from the Center for Climate Integrity, an environmental advocacy group. Expanding the list to include communities smaller than 25,000 people would increase that cost to more than $400 billion.

“Once you get into it, you realize we’re just not going to protect a lot of these places,” said Richard Wiles, executive director of the group, which wants oil and gas companies to pay some of the cost of climate adaptation. “This is the next wave of climate denial — denying the costs that we’re all facing.”

Read it all.

If there’s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first? https://t.co/rniY6yD2TM

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 20, 2019

The number of situations where the Church of England dealt with “concerns and allegations” about abuse rose by 50% between 2015 and 2017, figures show.

Incidents relating to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults, including some allegations of serious criminal offences, increased to 3,287 in 2017, compared with 2,195 in 2015. They related to both current and past events, and about one-third of them required reporting to statutory agencies.

The figures were published on Wednesday (pdf), less than two weeks before the C of E faces scrutiny in a further round of hearings at the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA). Last month, the C of E was heavily criticised for putting its reputation above the needs of abuse victims in a report published by the inquiry into the case of a former bishop, Peter Ball.

According to the latest data, 12% of concerns and allegations related to clergy. Others against whom concerns and allegations were made included church wardens, employees, volunteers, congregation members and people with church connections.

Read it all.

Church of England finds 50% rise in abuse claims and concerns https://t.co/WvoI3tp2qp

— NorfolkSAB (NSAB) (@NorfolkSAB) June 20, 2019

A local Richmond newspaper wrote a profile of Van Lew when she was near death. The article describes a formerly enslaved woman who worked for the family, had been educated in the Northeast and sent to Liberia then returned to Richmond. That woman was later placed by the Van Lews as a domestic worker in the Confederate White House, according to the article, though it’s unclear whether Van Lew relayed all this on her deathbed. What specific secrets did she overhear? What documents did she read? It’s unclear. Years later, Van Lew’s niece identified the woman in the article as Mary Richards Bowser.

Secrecy and public vagary are essential to spycraft, said the writer Leveen, who is working on a biography of Richards and who wrote “The Secrets of Mary Bowser,” a fictionalized account of Richards’ life.

“We can’t say, ‘These are the battle plans Mary smuggled out of the Confederate White House,’” said Leveen. “It’s not like in a Hollywood movie. But I have no doubt Mary was instrumental in helping to undermine the Confederacy.”

For her part, Richards — who by the time she began teaching in Freedmen’s schools had dropped her married name and, apparently, her husband — gave a series of talks in New York City after the war in 1865. She used pseudonyms when presenting, Leveen said, such as Richmonia Richards. In those presentations, covered by the local press, she talked about her time in Liberia and her wartime exploits, taking care of Union prisoners in a Confederate prison in Richmond, and some forms of espionage in the Confederate White House. But she was apparently short on details, something that has frustrated historians.

Read it all.

Today is Juneteenth, so here’s a story about a black woman who infiltrated the Confederate White House during the Civil War. She was part of a spy ring of free and enslaved black folks that helped bring down the Confederacy. I wrote about her for @ajc
https://t.co/7xeFhKXrZO

— Rosalind Bentley (@RozRBentley) June 19, 2019

“The BBC has found new evidence of the increasing control and suppression of Islam in China’s far western region of Xinjiang – including the widespread destruction of mosques.

Authorities provided rare access to religious sites and senior Islamic officials to support their claim that their policies only target violent religious extremism, not faith itself.

But after his official tour was over, China Correspondent John Sudworth set out to investigate.”

Watch it all (about 5 1/3 mins).

BBC News – Faith in ruins: China’s vanishing beards and mosques – amazing use of satellite imagery to depict the asphyxiation of Islam in Xinjiang https://t.co/3P3aR1powx

— Sofia Patel (@laramimi) June 20, 2019

In Hong Kong there have long been links between the pro-democracy activists and in particular the Catholic Church, which has a decades-long unresolved dispute with China’s Government over the right to ordain bishops.

The city’s most prominent young political activist, Joshua Wong, is a devout Christian, as are many older members of the pan-democratic camp.

“Some Christians, including me, are afraid that if the extradition bill is passed, it could affect freedom of religion in Hong Kong and freedom of religious activities,” Mr [Edwin] Chow said.

He believes it is this fear that has mobilised a larger-than-normal turn-out among the city’s Christians, who number around 900,000 — or about 12 per cent of the population.

Read it all.

The fear of police brutality loomed over Hong Kong’s uprising this week. But when Christians sung the the church hymn ‘Sing Hallelujah To The Lord’, a legal loophole was triggered and an unlikely protest anthem was born. https://t.co/Qs5CGguJG6 pic.twitter.com/Ab44g1mIxV

— ABC Religion&Ethics (@ABCReligion) June 20, 2019

The Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton, meeting this weekend 21-23 June, is to debate a motion asking the General Synod to implement same-sex marriage.

The full text of the motion, proposed by Dean Greg Jenks, is

24. That this Synod encourage the 2020 General Synod to adopt optional provisions for the blessing of civil marriages as well as an optional liturgy for the solemnization of Holy Matrimony where the parties to the marriage are of the same gender.

Moved: The Very Reverend Greg Jenks

Seconded: Canon Lee Archinal

Read it all.

Grafton Synod to Debate Provision of Same-Sex Marriage Liturgy https://t.co/dqPNzqeF3h pic.twitter.com/H8xOuISydS

— David Ould ن (@davidould) June 18, 2019

Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to thee in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Martyrdom of Saint Albans, First Martyr of Britain, from the Saint Alban’s Psalter c.13th century, English. pic.twitter.com/OJqU6U126F

— Edoardo (@EdoardoDFanfani) June 22, 2016

O God, renew our spirits by thy Holy Spirit, and draw our hearts this morning unto thyself, that our work may not be a burden, but a delight; and give us such a mighty love to thee as may sweeten all our obedience. Let us not serve with the spirit of bondage as slaves, but with cheerfulness and gladness, as children, delighting ourselves in thee and rejoicing in thy wishes for the sake of Jesus Christ.

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

A #Prayer to Begin the Day from the Pastor’s Prayerbook ‘O God, renew our spirits by thy Holy Spirit, and draw our hearts this morning unto thyself, that our work may not be a burden, but a delight…’ https://t.co/Sprv0CV0I7 #anglican #perspective #theology pic.twitter.com/AghvBNNMEA

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 20, 2019

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know”” this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,
”˜I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
moreover my flesh will dwell in hope.
For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades,
nor let thy Holy One see corruption.
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life;
thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence.’

“Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens; but he himself says,

”˜The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand,
till I make thy enemies a stool for thy feet.’

Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

–Acts 2:22-36

Those interested may find them there.

“You don’t remember when our culture ‘fell apart.’ It fell apart thousands of years ago, somewhere between the Tigris and the Euphrates.” – @drmoore at #disciple2019 pic.twitter.com/aYMlw5J0rc

— The Diocese of C4SO (@C4SO) June 18, 2019

Read it all.

As I informed the Diocese after receiving the partial restriction, I plan to appeal the disciplinary action taken against me as well as officially challenge the legality of B-012 and bring clarity as to which has more authority when at odds with one another — a General Convention Resolution or a Diocesan Canon.

Unfortunately, my appeal is temporarily on hold, as I await a formal charge being brought against me. It has now been over four months since the Presiding Bishop took disciplinary against me, and to date, I have still not been officially charged with anything. I have asked (for my sake and the sake of the Diocese) that this process not be drawn out. I was told an investigation into the allegations made against me would be conducted and I should hear something in a couple of weeks. That was in the middle of February. It is now June. As soon as I hear something, I will let you all know.

At the end of our 150th Diocesan Convention, as I was walking Presiding Bishop Curry to his car, knowing the potential problems that might result from legislation that was coming before the upcoming 79th General Convention, I told the Presiding Bishop how much I appreciated him coming to be with in Albany and how it was my hope and prayer (as a lifelong Episcopalian) that there would always be a place in The Episcopal Church for bishops, clergy, laity and dioceses that were theologically conservative and orthodox in their faith. He said that was his hope as well; that he had been richly blessed by his time with us and that the Diocese of Albany has much to offer the wider Episcopal Church.

The jury is still out as to whether The Episcopal Church is truly welcoming, inclusive and diverse enough for those of us who cannot embrace TEC’s current progressive agenda. If we are to have a real place in The Episcopal Church, we must be provided a way to remain true to our understanding of Holy Scripture and the sacramental nature of the Church, and to differentiate ourselves from TEC’s progressive actions and beliefs that violate God’s Word (as we understand it), and are so offensive and problematic to the vast majority of the wider Anglican Communion and Body of Christ. Anything less is the equivalent of TEC’s enslavement of its conservative and orthodox members. For a Church that is constantly touting “justice issues,” I would argue it is currently doing a great injustice to its conservative and orthodox brothers and sisters.

Read it all.

Monday 25th March – Please pray for Bishop Bill Love (TEC diocese of Albany) as he continues to remain faithful to the Scriptures and the Bible’s definition of marriage. Pray for discernment, strength and encouragement.https://t.co/HV8SdltdbY pic.twitter.com/5ru55sS3Zg

— GAFCON (@gafconference) March 24, 2019

The 49-year-old man and the child’s mother, who was single at the time, had been friends when he agreed to donate his semen in 2006.

They arranged to raise the child together but the pair later had a falling out, his lawyers said. The woman’s lawyers argued he was not the father.

However, the man was identified as a parent on the girl’s birth certificate and she called him “Daddy”.

On Wednesday, the High Court of Australia ruled that he had the legal status of a parent, effectively preventing the family from moving to New Zealand.

The judgement said: “To characterise the biological father of a child as a ‘sperm donor’ suggests that the man in question has relevantly done no more than provide his semen to facilitate an artificial conception procedure on the basis of an express or implied understanding that he is thereafter to have nothing to do with any child born as a result of the procedure.

“Those are not the facts of this case.”

Read it all (my emphasis).

Sperm donor is child’s legal father, Australian court rules https://t.co/e7V8MWLR65

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 19, 2019

Q: What first drew you to the “Emanuel” project?

A: I had just gotten married in June 2015, and I was on my honeymoon in New York. I walked into the bedroom, and my wife was crying. She told me nine people had been shot in their Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina.

Then she looked at me and said, “You don’t understand, they’re forgiving him. The family members are forgiving the murderer.” I remember looking at her and saying, “I hope whoever tells that story doesn’t skip that part.” It was that moment for me — encountering this radical, scandalous forgiveness and love for the murderer — that drew me into the story. I wanted the world to know that part of the story.

Q: What was different in this story?

A: It was that they loved him. It was this moment when (survivor) Felicia Sanders said something to him that really changed me: “We enjoyed you.”

When I go out and talk about the film, I’m not just talking about them forgiving him because they wanted to be emotionally free from him. I’m talking about a kind of love you rarely see. Their love for the shooter was a love that said, “I will bear the full weight of the wrong,” which is the highest kind of love — a love for your enemy.

Read it all.

Thanks to @mercnews for picking up my interview with @EmanuelTheMovie director Brian Ivie. If you didn't get to a theater last night, you have one more chance to see this powerful film tomorrow night. @PrayAndActNow https://t.co/zoiGA128CQ

— Jamie Aten (@drjamieaten) June 18, 2019

On May 18, extremists in Nigeria interrupted a church choir practice and abducted 17 Christians. They are being ransomed and might never see their families again. Some of the Christian women may be sold into slavery or raped and forced to marry the jihadist. It’s the latest attack in the escalating violent war on Christians within Nigeria, where 3,731 Christians were killed last year.

If such violence had occurred in Nashville rather than Nigeria, it would dominate nightly news broadcasts and saturate social media feeds. American churches would be launching fundraising campaigns for victims’ families and addressing it in their weekly gatherings. In this case, however, the American church has barely acknowledged it. Unfortunately, when violence occurs somewhere “over there” instead of in our backyard, it is often dismissed as just another story. American churches must do better.

I constantly bear witness to this sort of violence and the corresponding malaise by the nature of the organization I lead, Open Doors USA. We track such incidents of Christian persecution around the world through our annual World Watch List, a comprehensive ranking of countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. To us, this is more than just “another story”; it is another data point in a global crisis of persecution. One of every nine Christians experience high levels of persecution and suffer for their faith, and it’s picking up pace.

It’s not just in Nigeria.

Read it all.

Today in USA Today, Open Doors CEO David Curry calls the U.S. Church to wake up to the global crisis: “The American church is feeding itself to death while the worldwide church is being murdered.” https://t.co/kKXiN4O6bv

— Open Doors USA (@OpenDoors) June 18, 2019

But what if a church sang only the Old Testament Psalms. Pastor, theologian, and hymn writer, Isaac Watts grew up in a church that believed only the Psalms should be sung in the services, no newer hymns. But he argued that by so doing they were missing a great deal of New Testament truth. With the church’s permission, he began writing some hymns for the congregation, eventually producing about six hundred of them.

So far, so good. But when a hymn writer takes an Old Testament text and gives it a New Testament meaning, that involves more than merely explaining the initial passage of Scripture and drawing life principles from it. It requires expressing an opinion about how the New Testament relates to the passage. Does it really say what you’re trying to make it say?

Watt’s hymn Jesus Shall Reign is a case in point. He used the latter part of Psalm 72, and turned it into a hymn about Jesus. The psalm is a prayer of David for his son, Solomon, when He ascended to the throne. Watts felt this could also be a picture of the spread of the gospel today. Perhaps it can, in part.

Read it all.

We also remember Isaac Watts, Hymn Writer, who died in 1748 https://t.co/xl9rHTeonQ pic.twitter.com/pfyPekmfCD

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) November 25, 2017

The Gnostic message had a wide appeal. First of all, the prospect of obtaining a higher, secret knowledge is always tempting. Second, Gnosticism provided a plausible explanation of the problem of evil as the result of the impulsive and vindictive whims of an inferior god, and this struggle between two deities made sense. Third, the Gnostics’ contempt for the material world allowed many of them to consider pagan ceremonies inconsequential. They could in good conscience accept the demands of the Roman government and escape persecution. In addition, their message sounded biblical enough to attract those who didn’t have time to submit their claims to serious examination.

For Irenaeus, the main problem with Gnosticism was that it was not historical Christianity. The Gnostics were not interested in the historical Jesus and didn’t see the Bible as a unified story of redemption. To them, salvation was obtained through enlightenment and was only available to a chosen few. Their writings were earnest and poetic but quite different in scope and spirit from the canonical gospels.

Since the biblical narrative was not important to them, they could cast doubts on some of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. For example, some taught that the man on the cross was not the same as the miracle-working Christ, because it was not fit for Christ to suffer. This was problematic on both soteriological and practical levels. To persecuted Christians, it would have raised the question of why Christ asked his followers to accept abuses to the point of death when he himself escaped all suffering.

Besides, while most Gnostics were sincerely convinced of possessing the truth, a few used the appeal of higher knowledge as a means of exploitation. A Gnostic named Marcus was especially crafty around Lyon, performing tricks with water and wine to mimic Christ’s miracles and amaze his followers. He targeted wealthy women, urging them to give messages from God by saying the first thing that came into their minds. When they did, he proclaimed them prophetesses, accepting their valuable gifts and sexual favors as tokens of their gratitude. Only a few women recognized the deception and returned to the church.

Read it all.

How Irenaeus debated the Gnostics with logic and Scriptures https://t.co/7hc0fcZFK8

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) June 18, 2019

Let thy mighty hand, O Lord God, and outstretched arm be our defence; thy mercy and loving-kindness in Jesus Christ, thy dear Son, our salvation; thy all-true word, our instruction; the grace of the life-giving Spirit, our comfort and consolation, unto the end and in the end.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

–Acts 2:1-4

The BBC has been given rare access to the vast system of highly secure facilities thought to be holding more than a million Muslims in China’s western region of Xinjiang.

Authorities there insist they are just training schools. But the BBC’s visit uncovers important evidence about the nature of the system and the conditions for the people inside it.

Watch it all (just under 12 minutes).

The @BBC given rare access to the vast system of highly secure ‘thought transformation’ facilities holding more than a million #Muslims in #China’s #Xinjiang region. BBC’s visit uncovers important evidence about the conditions of the people inside it https://t.co/5vESsyKXBK

— Mehreen Zahra-Malik (@mehreenzahra) June 18, 2019

After that he took a stab at the administration for not being very responsive to his problem. I indicated that I was at least the third administrator who had seen him in two days. Finally, he slumped his shoulders and said, “This really hurts my feelings.”

That was his final appeal for me to allow him to graduate. It would hurt his feelings if we upheld the requirements for his degree.

The vast majority of our students would never come to me with such an appeal. They are very conscientious about fulfilling the expectations of their rigorous academic programs. But this was a rare student who wasn’t paying attention. The subtext of his appeal was that I should now do anything I could to avoid hurting his feelings, as if this were one of the standards of leadership.

I was a parish pastor for a long time before I became a seminary president, and through most of those days I was wading through hurt feelings, including my own. So I responded to the student by saying, “You do realize that your feelings are going to get hurt all of the time when you become a pastor, don’t you?” He just picked up his backpack and walked out of my office….

Read it all.

After years of strong growth, total charitable giving rose just 0.7% in 2018, according to a new report on philanthropy by Giving USA. When adjusted for inflation, total giving declined 1.7%.

Last year was the first time the impact of the new tax law, which eliminated or sharply reduced the benefits of charitable giving for many would-be donors, could be measured.

Altogether, individuals, bequests, foundations and corporations donated an estimated $427.71 billion to U.S. charities in 2018, Giving USA said. But giving by individuals fell, while contributions from foundations and corporations rose.

“We certainly do have a pretty stark picture that tax reform took effect and charitable giving declined,” said Laura MacDonald, the president of Benefactor Group and vice chair of the Giving USA foundation board. However, a volatile stock market, which took a dive near the end of the year, may have also played a role, she said.

Read it all.

GOP tax law dis-incentivized charitable giving // Charitable contributions take a hit following tax reform https://t.co/HfEUsTptpp

— Thomas S. Kidd (@ThomasSKidd) June 18, 2019