"In the Holy Scriptures alone is the instruction of religion announced—to which let no man add, from which let no man detract—which are sufficient in themselves for the enunciation of the truth."
— Athanasius#SolaScriptura #ReformationDay
— Mike Riccardi (@MikeRiccardi_) October 31, 2019
Anglican Erich Junger has seen a lot in his wide-ranging career as an enlisted sailor in the US Navy, a medical examiner, a police detective, and a crime scene analyst.
More than a decade ago, his calling shifted to a different kind of investigation. It’s careful work, sometimes secretive and sensitive. He goes after a master manipulator, an enemy responsible for physical, psychological, and spiritual havoc.
Well, not just any enemy. The Enemy.
An exorcist in the Anglican Church of North America, Junger now dons a clerical collar as he advises fellow believers to “put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” (Eph. 6:11).
Scriptural directives to defend against the Devil take on a heavy urgency once you have seen the twisted work of Satan up close, again and again. Junger dedicated his ministry to studying spiritual warfare—specifically, the physiological effects of demonic activities—back in 2007. Ten years later, he became licensed as an exorcist.
To outsiders, the work of exorcism carries significant cultural baggage, whether due to misperceptions gleaned from the movies or the many real-life cases where possession had been faked or confused with mental illness. This is tricky spiritual territory to navigate. That’s why exorcists like Junger would say their expertise in identifying and combating the presence of the demonic is so crucial right now.
This year, eighth-grade reading scores in 31 states dropped two to seven points — which the federal government deemed significant — compared with their performances in 2017. Indiana, New Hampshire and Virginia had the largest declines. Fourth-grade reading scores dropped in 17 states, with New Jersey’s six-point drop the largest. Only one state, Mississippi, improved, the data showed.
James F. Lane, the superintendent of public instruction in Virginia, said that while grade-level proficiency was a goal, the school system “must also recognize that Virginia’s schools are enrolling increasing numbers of students whose learning is impacted by poverty and trauma.” He said the school system needed to recruit and retain high-quality teachers and equip them to meet the needs of a “changing student population.”
Average math scores fared considerably better, particularly among fourth graders. Nine states had significant increases in fourth-grade math, compared with 2017. Again, Mississippi led the pack. The eighth-grade score in three states improved, while those in six states declined.
American students have made large gains in math and small gains in reading since 1990. But those improvements began to level out around 2009. There is no consensus on why that happened.
The average American 8th-grade reading score on a national exam declined in more than half of the states https://t.co/XQa5pQWfzE
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 30, 2019
Last week the literary world bade adieu to Professor Harold Bloom, the most prodigious and well-known literary critic of the second half of the twentieth century. Looking back over approximately fifty years of writing, we conclude that one of the recursive and unifying features of his extensive output is the insistence upon regarding sacred works as rhetorical products, along with the attunement to the theological dimensions of imaginative fiction. In creating a model of how to construe the relationship between religion and literature as modes of cultural activity, Bloom fused the insights of two formidable precursors. From the minister-cum-scholar Northrop Frye, he began to view the totality of literary creation as an organic and interconnected whole, a “great code” founded on and decipherable with the aid of Scripture. From M.H. Abrams, his undergraduate adviser at Cornell, he learned not just that poets too were preoccupied with spiritual concerns, but that every instance of poetic communication necessarily involves four components: author, text, world, and audience.
Nevertheless, we can also speak of three discrete stages of Bloom’s criticism. The first is crystallized in the oft-misunderstood book The Anxiety of Influence (1973), in which he used Freudian psychoanalysis as a method for understanding the dynamics of artistic creation. In essence, he argued that one could trace a common process whereby young poets rebel against the literary forbearers that simultaneously and paradoxically shape and nourish their artistic sensibilities, in order to carve out a space for their own originality and yearning for greatness.
A Recalcitrant Influence
Matthew Creighton, a PhD Candidate in Religion and Literature at the Divinity School, considers the legacy of the late Harold Bloom, who died last week at the age of 89.https://t.co/vFmhp59lJs pic.twitter.com/n1iHaZa6xv
— Sightings: Religion in Public Life (@DivSightings) October 24, 2019
None of the largest Churches in Northern Ireland have said they are prepared to carry out same-sex marriages.
The Church of Ireland, Methodist Church of Ireland and Presbyterian Church in Ireland all stated that they will only celebrate marriages between a man and a woman.
The Catholic Church expressed its concerns at the “redefinition” of marriage, but did not comment directly on whether it would hold same-sex wedding ceremonies on its properties.
The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster did not reply when approached for comment, although it has previously expressed its opposition to same-sex marriage.
However, All Souls Church, a non-subscribing Presbyterian Church based in south Belfast, confirmed it will provide the opportunity for same-sex couples to have their marriage solemnised.
We sat with one young mother of three, in her small flat in one of the blocks near the shell of Grenfell Tower. She lives in what is euphemistically called ‘temporary accommodation’ (some in her block had been in such a state for twenty years or more). The block had been without hot water for many weeks. When it was finally fixed, within a week she was then told to move her family to another flat in the block as the owners wanted it back. If she refused, the only options were a flat in Essex miles away from her children’s schools or homelessness. The lock on the door to the ground floor balcony did not work, making the apartment vulnerable to intruders. Doors were hanging loose from kitchen cabinets making them unusable, and mouse droppings were scattered across the floor despite her putting down traps. Because the flat was offered by the Council yet administered by a Housing Association, it was hard to know who to complain to. As a result, repeated calls to the landlord had yielded little change. Talking to tenants in the block, the repeated claim was that they would say ‘we will get back to you’ and never did. Similar stories are found all over north Kensington, people reluctant to complain in case they are branded troublemakers, echoing the story of Chloe Williams, who faced eviction from her one bedroom council flat in Kensington after complaining about rats, mice, cockroaches and bedbugs in her home.
All this is happening in one of the wealthiest boroughs of the country. Many feel our drastically reduced social housing stock has become in the words of one resident a ‘dumping ground of the most vulnerable in our society’. It comes so low down on our list of priorities, that the people who live in it, including many of the most vulnerable, feel abandoned. If a society can be judged on how it treats it poorest and most defenceless people, we are not doing well. The people we met repeatedly feel fobbed off, uncared for, and that the very people who are responsible for their housing don’t seem to care enough to pick up the phone or arrange repairs.
Which brings us back to Grenfell United. The kinds of change GU have been campaigning for – stronger regulation and a change of culture around health & safety standards (including the removal of unsafe cladding) and a proper tenant voice – should not be hard to establish. The financial crash led to tighter regulation of financial institutions so that if a bank mis-sells there are clear penalties. If a school is not run properly there is an inspection system to label it as ‘needs improvement’. Yet tenants with landlords who fail to maintain their property, rendering it unsafe, have no effective remedy, other than repeated attempts to get landlords to listen. And that didn’t stop Grenfell happening.
Two years on since Grenfell, nothing much has changed….
Some thoughts on Grenfell, on the eve of the publication of the Report on Phase 1 of the Public Inquiryhttps://t.co/se5Q0XsjIc
— Graham Tomlin (@gtomlin) October 28, 2019
The incarnation of God in Christ is God’s confirmation that the bodies of all people are holy. As Paul wrote, they are temples. Our congregation seeks to minister to people in a holistic way, in body, mind, and soul, by providing food and clothes as well as through community organizing, worship, and faith formation.
The challenge for all of us in this ministry comes in taking seriously Jesus’ model of reaching out to people we might fear to touch. People who are addicted to drugs certainly fit the category of modern lepers. It did give me pause during my training to learn that rescue breathing was part of the emergency response, and that if I did not use a rescue breathing mask or barrier mask, I would be at risk of absorbing some of the residue of the drugs.
Our Sunday morning worship services include people who live on the street. Our members are divided about whether or not that is a good thing. For various security reasons, police have recommended that we restrict entrance to people known to be part of the congregation. I can’t imagine doing that. It would be giving in to fear and effectively profiling those who come and worship with us. We choose not to lock our doors to keep anyone out.
Am I afraid that someone might come in and harm us? I’d be lying if I said I was not. We’ve seen people become belligerent at our Sunday dinners, often under the influence of drugs. News reports regularly remind us that the worship hour of any faith is not guaranteed to be sanctuary. Our goal is to be as prepared as we can be, and at the same time as emotionally, spiritually, and physically open as we can be—for all our neighbors. Christ calls us to operate more out of preposterous love than destructive fear. Jim or someone like him will come back one of these nights. We want to be ready to help.
The 6-2 victory capped the most unlikely of World Series. The road team won all seven games. That had never happened before. Only the baseball gods can understand how this stuff plays out sometimes. The team that started 19-31 is the World Series champion — for the first time in franchise history, going back to its birth in 1969 as the Montreal Expos, and the first time for a Washington baseball team since the Senators in the halcyon days of 1924.
The Nationals trailed 3-1 in the eighth inning of the wild-card game. They trailed 3-1 in the eighth inning of the final game of the division series against the Dodgers. This time they decided not to wait that long. Manager Dave Martinez likes to say, “Let’s go 1-0 today.” The Nats went 1-0 in the biggest game of the season.
“You know what? This is — I mean, honestly, all these years, all this hard work, this year, the struggles early — I mean, this is what it’s about right here,” Kendrick told Buster Olney in the immediate aftermath of the on-field celebration as Max Scherzer gave him a big hug. “This is what it’s about. I mean, words can’t even describe this feeling. It’s phenomenal. This group of guys that we got here, we fought all year. This makes it sweet. This is so sweet right now.”
“It was fitting that the Washington Nationals’ first World Series title required all 7 games,” writes @TylerKepner. It was “the greatest victory in the history of a luckless franchise in a city that had waited nearly a century for a night like this.” https://t.co/C0n6Iidg8F
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 31, 2019
Tell us briefly the vision and story of Dinner Church.
As an 85-year-old church in the heart of Seattle, doing poorly month after month, we needed a new way to stay in the rescue mission. Otherwise we would have to move out of the city like so many others. This vision—a restoration of an ancient way of doing church that resonated with cosmopolitan Seattle—came at a time when we really needed it. When we first began Dinner Church, we were surprised how quickly it started to fill up with sinners and strangers and seculars—people whose lives, quite frankly, were not going all that well, though we would never see that in a Sunday morning gathering.
Where do you see biblical impetus for this way of doing church?
Dinner Church is about restoring the Jesus dinner table theology that was practiced during the apostolic era of the early church. It’s tough to find a mention in the Bible of Christians gathering without a table and food involved. Many of us haven’t taken into account how different it is to talk about Christ around a table as opposed to a traditional teaching environment. They assumed Christ would be there in the room. They had a sense of divine presence every time they gathered.
Why is a good meal so attractive to people?
It’s the best metaphor for the gospel we’ve found. We put out quality, abundant food because we’d rather show the gospel than have to just explain it. People walk through the line and see more food than they can possibly eat—all the colors and carved meats—and they realize Jesus paid for this. They’re not being billed for it. Then we build on this imagery throughout the evening. The food provides a critical, immediate sense of abundance of generosity and divine care for people.
#GodGotIt : RT derekhiebert: I did this interview piece for CT_Pastors on the Dinner Church movement, originally for a guide on church models. It’s now fully accessible.
I still think its a great strategy for churches and the mission of the gospel, espe… https://t.co/RYM3RNwfNy— Joseph Jerry Rhule (@JerryRhule) October 30, 2019
O Thou, Who fillest heaven and earth, ever acting, ever at rest, Who art everywhere and everywhere art wholly present, Who art not absent even when far off, Who with Thy whole being fillest yet transcendest all things, Who teachest the hearts of the faithful without the din of words; teach us, we pray Thee, 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)
The words of Nehemi’ah the son of Hacali’ah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the capital, that Hana’ni, one of my brethren, came with certain men out of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that survived, who had escaped exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The survivors there in the province who escaped exile are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days; and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments; let thy ear be attentive, and thy eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant which I now pray before thee day and night for the people of Israel thy servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Yea, I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which thou didst command thy servant Moses. Remember the word which thou didst command thy servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your dispersed be under the farthest skies, I will gather them thence and bring them to the place which I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. O Lord, let thy ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants who delight to fear thy name; and give success to thy servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.
–Nehemiah 1:1-11