I will sing of thy steadfast love, O LORD, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations. For thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens.

–Psalm 89:1-2

In any other area, the left would look at a history like this and ask whether those formal convictions are the only thing that matters, or whether the eugenic past still exerts a structural influence on the present. And in any other area of policy Thomas’s point about how legal abortion appears, in the aggregate, to act in racist and eugenic ways would be taken as an indicator that something more than just emancipation is at work.

Yes, in their theoretical self-conception, pro-choice institutions are neutral custodians of the right to choose. In theory the genetic-screening industry exists only to provide information. In theory the high abortion rate in black America is just the result of countless individual decisions.

But in practice, liberal technocracy still has a “solve poverty by cutting birthrates” bias inherited from a population-panic age, and abortion-rights rhetoric still has a way of sliding into Malthusian fears about too many poor kids in foster care. In practice the medical system strongly encourages abortion in response to disability, with predictable results. In practice Planned Parenthood clinics are in the abortion, not the adoption business — and the disparate impact of abortion on black birthrates is shaped by that reality and others, not just by free choice.

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Weighing in on a recent Supreme Court decision about abortion, Clarence Thomas performed a public service, says @DouthatNYT: He brought two competing historical narratives into contact, on an issue where ideological arguments pass like trains in the night. https://t.co/OoulyyNUjr

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) June 2, 2019

The robots may or may not steal our jobs. Headlines frequently announce that AI will leave half the population unemployed, but a closer look at the data indicates a smaller impact. And history, including very recent history, suggests that automation ends up complementing non-automated work, rather than replacing it.

But even if the robots don’t steal our jobs, they may be stealing our humanity.

By that I mean that the common habit of treating robots as people—however much it seems like a joke or a shorthand or a metaphor—could erode our already diminished sense of the human person as uniquely special. Effusive media reports give the impression that robots will befriend us, play with our children, and care for us when we are old—and that they may be (at least) as good as the human alternative.

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#Technology #robotics : Meet Sophia: The robot who smiles and frowns just like us https://t.co/HIU8kU9glN pic.twitter.com/u5nVCsvVbh

— My Beautiful Destination (@MyBeauDes) June 2, 2019

And now, after a 2-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur, it is six European Cups for Liverpool. With Barcelona and Bayern Munich left behind, ahead are Milan — just one away — and then 13-time winners Real Madrid, who have owned the European Cup competition like no others. No club can be separated from its past, but Liverpool, more than most, are marked by what came before, from the sublime to the tragic.

The latest title mirrored those that came before in the sense that it was gutted out and filled with might-have-beens, probably many more than there should have been. That has been the story of Liverpool’s European wins: twice on penalties, twice by a single goal, always with the game in the balance until the final minutes.

So maybe it was apt that after the final whistle, when most of the newly crowned champions had collapsed to the Wanda Metropolitano pitch, felled by equal parts exhaustion, elation and the need for release, the last to get up was Jordan Henderson.

The Liverpool captain stayed down for what felt like an eternity, first with head in hands, then hunched on all fours. Only when substitute Divock Origi put the match out of reach, with three minutes to go, had Liverpool been able to shake a creeping fear that a final marked by errors and fatigue could take a twist against them.

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Wrote this about the UCL final, cartoon pianos, Mutombo and Rudyard Kipling as @LFC make it six… https://t.co/X3RlI2ooTq

— Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) June 2, 2019

The clergy and people of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, gathered here in a special electing convention, have chosen the Very Rev. Ryan Reed, 51, to become the fourth Bishop of the Diocese, succeeding the Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker.

The Bishop-elect has served as Dean of St. Vincent’s Cathedral, where the election was held, since 2002. A native of Omaha, Neb., Dean Reed was raised near Houston. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Texas A&M University, where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets, and a Master of Divinity degree from Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa. He and his wife, Kathy, have one daughter. Ordained to the priesthood in 1997, he has served churches in Fort Worth, Bridgeport, and Bedford, Texas; and held a variety of ministerial and administrative posts. He is a past President of the diocesan Standing Committee and presently serves on the Executive Committee of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). He is a member of the Society of the Holy Cross, an international devotional society for clergy.

The special convention opened with the report of the Nominating Committee, which officially placed four names in nomination. Balloting began after a worship service. The election was confirmed on the third ballot, when Dean Reed received a majority of votes from both the clergy and lay orders, as required.

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Bishop Ackerman leads the electors in prayer before the third ballot. pic.twitter.com/cKIzhilIsL

— Diocese • Fort Worth (@e_quips) June 1, 2019

O God, whose blessed Son, our great High Priest, has entered once for all into the holy place, and ever liveth to intercede on our behalf: Grant that we, sanctified by the offering of his body, may draw near with full assurance of faith by the way which he has dedicated for us, and evermore serve thee, the living God; through the same thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee, O Father, and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

HEBREWS
Since we have such a great High Priest Who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God… pic.twitter.com/FDHGiqok

— Orthodox Reflections (@ByzDW) March 18, 2012

And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God–not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

–Ephesians 2:1-10

Read it all [content not necessarily suitable for all blog readers].

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The strange supersttion has arisen in the Westrn world that we can start all over again, remaking human nature, human society,+the possibilities of happiness; as tho the knowledge+experience of our ancestors were now entirely irrelevant

–Roger Scruton, Gentle Regrets, Chapter 6 pic.twitter.com/QjDH73w5y2

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 1, 2019

Bishop Iker with the Very Rev. Ryan Reed and his wife, Kathy. Dean Reed was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese on the third ballot. pic.twitter.com/UxHgbwfBIk

— Diocese • Fort Worth (@e_quips) June 1, 2019

In March, just over a month before the Easter attacks, a gunman quietly entered [Mohammad Razak] Taslim’s house in the early hours of the morning. He was lying in bed, next to his wife, and his youngest son. The gunman shot him once in the head.

“At first I thought the phone charger had exploded, but I looked and it was fine,” Taslim’s wife told me. “Then I tried to wake him up, and I could smell gunpowder… I reached out to him and I realised he wasn’t conscious. I thought he was dead.”

Taslim was rushed to hospital. He survived the attack, but it’s not clear if he will ever fully recover.

Sri Lanka’s army commander, Lt Gen Mahesh Senanayake, is now playing a leading role in the investigation into the Easter Bombings. He told me it had been confirmed that the “same network” was also responsible for the desecration of the Buddhist statues, the explosives hidden in the coconut grove, and the shooting of Taslim.

He admitted that the previous incidents should have made the authorities more alert to the dangers of a jihadist attack. Instead, warnings by the Indian security services in the days and hours leading up the bombings weren’t followed up, due to what the army commander referred to as problems with “intelligence sharing” between different departments.

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This is the untold story of a local Muslim community leader who tried to stop Sri Lanka’s extremist network, months before they carried out the Easter Sunday attacks… But when he got too close to tracing them, he was shot and left paralysed: https://t.co/SCA32JABcj

— Secunder Kermani (@SecKermani) May 31, 2019

Almighty and everlasting God, who didst find thy martyr Justin wandering from teacher to teacher, seeking the true God, and didst reveal to him the sublime wisdom of thine eternal Word: Grant that all who seek thee, or a deeper knowledge of thee, may find and be found by thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today is the feast day of St.Justin Martyr. ⛪️🙏 pic.twitter.com/uGpVWZ0on5

— Romeo Jarantilla,Jr (@Rjarantilla12) June 1, 2019

Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

–From yesterday’s Daily Prayer

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

–Hebrews 5:7-14

Diocesan history will be made on Saturday, June 1, when our clergy and elected lay delegates prayerfully select a Bishop Coadjutor who will become the Fourth Bishop of the Diocese. The call for this Special Convention for the Election of a Bishop Coadjutor was issued by the Bishop and Standing Committee in August 2018, when Bishop Iker’s retirement plans were announced. Our theme for this year of discernment and transition is “Hope and a Future.”

The Special Convention will be held at St. Vincent’s Cathedral Church, 1300 Forest Ridge Drive, Bedford. The proceedings will be webcast live beginning at 8:30 a.m. (Texas time).

Read it all and follow all the links here.

We bid your prayers on the eve of the election of a Bishop Coadjutor. @The_ACNA pic.twitter.com/DCnxsVaXgJ

— Diocese • Fort Worth (@e_quips) May 31, 2019

Germans of all faiths and none are being urged to wear kippah skullcaps on Saturday as a symbol of solidarity with the Jewish community, after a steep rise in antisemitic attacks.

Protests across the country have been called by the government’s antisemitism ombudsman after he triggered a heated debate when he warned Jews last week not to wear the kippah because of the increasing likelihood of being attacked.

The German tabloid newspaper Bild has been one of the most vocal supporters of the protests, even publishing a cut-out kippah for readers to download and print.

Felix Klein, who was appointed as antisemitism ombudsman a year ago, told German media last week: “I cannot recommend that Jews wear the kippah whenever and wherever they want in Germany, and I say this with regret.”

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Germans of all faiths urged to wear kippah in act of solidarity with Jews against rising anti-Semitism https://t.co/cejzWiXMUU pic.twitter.com/nsoRPMO4Vt

— Iain Levine (@iainlevine) May 31, 2019

…evidence is mounting that the conflict has taken an economic toll. The Commerce Department said Thursday that trade — both imports and exports — slumped in April, and data released earlier this week showed a sharp slowdown in manufacturing, amplifying a recent trend. The bond market in recent days has been sending signals that the trade war could be a threat to growth in the United States and globally. The impact could deepen if Mr. Trump follows through on his promise, made Thursday, to impose new tariffs on imports from Mexico.

And as the conflict drags on, there are signs it is beginning to reshape the global economy in more fundamental ways.

“There’s definitely lasting damage that has been done,” said Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s not going to mean the end of the world tomorrow, but it’s death by a thousand cuts. How competitive is America going to be in 10 or 15 years?”

Tariffs have not yet compelled businesses to return large-scale production to the United States, where labor and other costs tend to be much higher than in China and other overseas manufacturing hubs.

But trade tensions are accelerating a corporate trend of shifting supply chains away from China. In a recent survey of more than 200 corporate executives by the consulting firm Bain, 42 percent said they expected to get materials from a different region in the next year, and 25 percent said they were redirecting investments out of China.

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When the trade war first broke out, manufacturers mostly tried to ride it out. But as it drags on — and shows no signs of going away — they are being forced to make more lasting changes to their businesses.https://t.co/qUHLvsVfzI

— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) May 30, 2019

President Xi Jinping last year began enforcing religious regulations to rein in church growth and bend Christian belief to party dictates. Mr. Xi gave direct control of churches to the officially atheistic Communist Party. Some urban underground megachurches were shut down. Thousands of congregants were arrested and several prominent Protestant pastors received lengthy prison sentences. Earlier this month, the regime launched a nationwide campaign to eradicate unregistered churches.

Mr. Xi calls this policy “sinicization.” The goal is to make religions “instruments of the Party,” the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions asserts. The government confirmed this when it inadvertently posted internal documents—downloaded by ChinaAid, a nonprofit Christian human-rights organization—revealing that it intended to “contain the overheated growth of Christianity.”

Last year in Henan province, 10,000 Protestant churches were ordered shut, even though most were registered with the state. During 2018, more than one million Christians were threatened or persecuted and 5,000 arrested. Among them is an American permanent resident, Pastor John Sanqiang Cao, 60, who is serving seven years for “organizing illegal border crossings” to deliver aid in Myanmar.

Mr. Xi’s regulations also ban minors from entering churches and forbid Sunday schools and Bible camps. In churches, Christian symbols sometimes are being replaced with pictures of Mr. Xi. Surviving churches may substitute biblical teachings with socialist values.

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Inside China’s War on Christians – WSJ https://t.co/CPXzp3mArV

— Fenggang (Franklin) Yang 杨凤岗 (@FenggangYang) May 31, 2019

What are we here for? What makes this life worth living? The questions of meaning are pressing in a contested, divided world, but it’s rare to see theologians make the connection to how their work helps people answer them.

To begin to recover the connection between theologians and these life questions, scholar-pastor Matt Croasmun and theologian Miroslav Volf co-wrote a book — or a manifesto, as they have described it — issuing a clarion call to theology to think bigger about its own role in the world.

“Theology should make a difference, because God cares about the world,” Croasmun said. “We say in the book that God does not need theology. If anyone needs theology, we do — that is, we human beings.”

Theology is a uniquely qualified discipline, Croasmun argues, to convene the conversation about meaning with other religious and philosophical traditions. Theology can help us define questions of meaning and talk about firm answers that are not just a matter of personal preference.

Croasmun is an associate research scholar at Yale University and directs the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. His research focuses primarily on the Pauline Epistles, and his first book, “The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans,” was published in 2017.

Croasmun spoke with Faith & Leadership’s Chris Karnadi about what theologians and Christian leaders can learn from his and Volf’s book, “For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference.”

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“It’s time to ask more from theologians.” Read the interview with @mattcroasmun of @YaleCFC and YDS in @FaithLeadership. https://t.co/FC7gM0qykc pic.twitter.com/XaQ4CQ48Hg

— Yale Divinity School (@YaleDivSchool) May 31, 2019

Church leaders have welcomed the re-election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India, but campaigners warned that his nationalist stance could leave Christians vulnerable.

The recent election, which took place in seven stages, saw 900 million people eligible to vote. The turnout at 67 per cent was the highest ever in an Indian general election and it also saw the highest participation by women.

The main opponent of Mr Modi and his BJP party, Rahul Gandhi’s Indian National Congress and the United Progressive Alliance failed to secure the 10 per cent of the seats needed, meaning that India is without an official opposition party.

Archbishop Joseph D’Souza, on behalf of the Good Shepherd Churches in India and All India Christian Council has congratulated His Excellency Shri Narendra Modion his historic landslide win.

The Archbishop said that the members of the All India Christian Council and their churches would be praying for Shri Narendra Modi and his government ‘as he governs the nation with challenges ahead of him’.

However, other Christian groups were more circumspect.

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The Church has forgotten how to tell the Christian story to the 93 per cent of people who have little or no contact with it, a new report from the Central Council of Readers suggests.

“We desperately need skilled teachers who will live the story, tell the story, and accompany people as they explore the full implications of becoming part of the story,” says Resourcing Sunday to Saturday Faith, a booklet sent to every Anglican Bishop and every Reader in England and Wales this month. “Our argument in this booklet is that Readers are ideally placed to meet this urgent need.”

Setting out the Council’s “renewed vision” for lay ministry, it begins with a diagnosis of the current landscape for evangelism: “a time of great ferment in the Church”, given internal disputes over sexuality, safeguarding failures, and a society where “many are bewildered by the sheer scale of change”. A “fresh perspective” is needed, it suggests.

“The problem is that we have forgotten how to tell our story — or, to put it another way, we have only been telling part of the story,” it argues.

“In part, this is because we simply don’t know the story. The Church has been described as ‘a mile wide and an inch deep’. Many people in our churches simply haven’t reflected on how the story impacts that many different parts of their lives.”

Read it all.

I found this interesting – a new booklet that has been sent to all Readers and Bishops. It says the Church historically devoted “great time and care” to catechesis. Thanks so much to Readers @jembloomfield & @hamchick for comment: https://t.co/yV49KE73NX

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) May 31, 2019

Father in heaven, by whose grace the virgin mother of thine incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more blessed in keeping thy word: Grant us who honor the exaltation of her lowliness to follow the example of her devotion to thy will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

“Mary and Elizabeth”, by Dorothy Webster Hawksley (1939). My favorite painting of my favorite Marian feast. pic.twitter.com/GRokJxqUWm

— Fr. Matt Fish (@frmattfish) May 31, 2019

Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast set eternity in our hearts, and awakened within us desires which the world cannot satisfy: lift our eyes, we pray Thee, above the narrow horizons of this present world, that we may behold the things eternal in the heavens, wherein is laid up for us an inheritance that fadeth not away; 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)

Restore us again, O God of our salvation,

and put away thy indignation toward us!

Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?

Wilt thou prolong thy anger to all generations?

Wilt thou not revive us again,

that thy people may rejoice in thee?

–Psalm 85:4-6

Please watch it all and you may find much more information about Thy Kingdom Come there.

What we have seen is that Dr Warner’s argument is misleading in several respects.

• It is not the case that Deuteronomy 22:13-29 is the foundation for the biblical rejection of sex outside marriage:
• It is not the case that what is said in depends on the idea that a woman ids the property of her father or her husband;
• It is not the case that these verses simply echo the ideas of the surrounding culture;
• It is not the case that Exodus 22:16-17 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 are about a woman being married off to someone who has sexually assaulted her.

In addition Dr Warner has failed to acknowledge the way in which the actual foundation for biblical thinking about sexual ethics is the creation narrative in Geneses 1 and 2 and what St Paul says in Ephesians 5:32 about marriage being a reflection of Christ’s relationship with his Church.

For all these reasons her article does not make out a persuasive case for the Church to reconsider its traditional view that faithful Christian discipleship requires sexual abstinence outside marriage and sexual fidelity within it.

This does not mean that Christians today need to adopt the specific laws laid down in Deuteronomy 22. As Article VI says, is it not the case that the ‘civil precepts’ contained in the Old Testament ‘ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth.’ What it does means, as Oliver O’Donovan writes, is that as Christians we need to learn to see within this law (as within the Old Testament law as a whole) ‘a revelation of created order and the good to which all men are called, a ‘moral law’ by which every human being is claimed and which belongs fundamentally to men’s welfare.’

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Martin Davie–A response to Meg Warner ‘Does the Bible really say … that sex outside marriage is wrong? https://t.co/tYzlpsnfpt #christianity #sexualethics #marriage #bible #anglican #anthropology pic.twitter.com/qdQI0oGk5j

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 30, 2019

(img: Gilead Books)

Jesus hasn’t just gone away. He has gone deeper into the heart of reality–our reality and God’s. He has become far more than a visible friend and companion; he has shown himself to be the very centre of our life, the source of our loving energy in the world and the source of our prayerful, trustful waiting on God. He has made us able to be a new kind of human being, silently and patiently trusting God as a loving parent, actively and hopefully at work to make a difference in the world, to make the kind of difference love makes.

So if the world looks and feels like a world without God, the Christian doesn’t try to say, ‘It’s not as bad as all that’, or seek to point to clear signs of God’s presence that make everything all right. The Christian will acknowledge that the situation is harsh, even apparently unhopeful–but will dare to say that they are willing to bring hope by what they offer in terms of compassion and service. And their own willingness and capacity for this is nourished by the prayer that the Spirit of Jesus has made possible for them.

The friends of Jesus are called, in other words, to offer themselves as signs of God in the world–to live in such a way that the underlying all-pervading energy of God begins to come through them and make a difference.

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Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord – Cycle C https://t.co/a1zGZvPe4l pic.twitter.com/BftTRnXVcL

— CatholicismPure (@CatholicismPure) May 30, 2019

As you can imagine, there’s no shortage of fine choral music to celebrate the feast of Our Lord’s Ascension says music historian Monsignor Philip Whitmore. He suggests we listen is a piece of 20th century organ music written as an extended meditation and an uplifting motet for double choir by English composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

Read and listen to it all.

Today is the Solemnity of The Ascension of the Lord.

‘Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.’ – Acts 1:11 pic.twitter.com/CF4nPFS2xI

— Man of Catholicism (@ManofCath) May 30, 2019