Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
–Hebrews 12:1-2
President Donald Trump won impeachment acquittal Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close only the third presidential trial in American history with votes that split the country, tested civic norms and fed the tumultuous 2020 race for the White House.
With Chief Justice John Roberts presiding, senators sworn to do “impartial justice” stood at their desks to state their votes for the roll call — “guilty” or “not guilty” — in a swift tally almost exclusively along party lines. Visitors, including the president’s allies, watched from the crowded gallery. Roberts read the declaration that Trump “be, and is hereby, acquitted of the charges.”
The outcome followed months of remarkable impeachment proceedings, from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House to Mitch McConnell’s Senate, reflecting the nation’s unrelenting partisan divide three years into the Trump presidency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump won impeachment acquittal Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close only the third presidential trial in American history with votes that split the country, tested civic norms and fed the tumultuous 2… https://t.co/TuzfRGQpBC
— WAND TV News (@wandtvnews) February 5, 2020
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
Bishop Michael and the Bishop of Cork, the Rt Revd Dr Paul Colton, issued the following joint statement today:
“Our two dioceses are actively exploring the possibilities of exchange and a deepening of relationships not only in the context of our common membership of the Anglican Communion of Churches, but also against the backdrop of Brexit. In these days following Brexit and as the relationships between peoples on these islands unfolds anew, we believe it is important to think not only of commerce and trade, but also of what it means, in the broadest sense, to be good neighbours in this part of the world.
“Brexit was not a vote to leave Europe; it is about leaving the European Union. We are part of a larger family of Christians and we can encourage one other by learning from each other and enriching one another’s life. We will look at specific and tangible ways we can do this across our two dioceses in the coming months as our link develops.”
Since 1857, congregations have been lovingly caring for Grace Anglican Church.
The Gothic revival building, which consumes the corner of Albion, Pearl and West streets, was designed by prolific architect John Turner who, with a long list of the city’s most iconic buildings to his credit, has been called the builder of Brantford.
Some of the city’s most prominent families helped established Grace church and worshipped there over the decades.
And, much later, as congregations dwindled and neighbouring churches closed, they have been taken in by Grace, the Mother Church of Brantford.
It’s no longer just a place for Sunday worship, but for Girl Guide meetings, AA gatherings, a refuge for the hungry to get a meal, and a centre for those involved in various charity projects.
But, when you’re 163 years old, your age starts to show.
City’s oldest church gets some TLC – Brantford Expositor https://t.co/UhEJYqOVBb
— Anonymous (@HankMonkfan) February 5, 2020
Thousands of people will take action to help tackle Climate Change as part of the Church of England’s first ever official green Lent campaign, launched today by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Environmentalists, activists and climate experts gathered at Lambeth Palace for the official launch of LiveLent 2020 a set of 40 daily reflections, actions and prayers.
It comes on the same day Prime Minister Boris Johnson officially launched the UK’s COP26 strategy ahead of the crucial UN climate talks in Glasgow in November, alongside Sir David Attenborough, climate expert Lord Stern and the outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.
Those attending the launch were invited to add personal climate commitments to a ‘pledge-tree’, before a panel of expert climate academics, influencers and activists was chaired by the Archbishop.
#LiveLent 2020 is based on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book, Saying Yes to Life, by Dr Ruth Valerio.
Christians urged to plant trees and twin toilets in Church of England’s first official green Lent campaign #LiveLent https://t.co/esY0YoVTZT @ruthvalerio
— Sarah Greenwood (@sayssarahg) February 4, 2020
Sandra Smith isn’t sure why the Enneagram has taken off so recently among faith communities. Maybe it’s because of social media, or perhaps it’s because of the popularity of categorizing one another, she said.
But it’s not a typing system, said Smith, a certified consultant and teacher of the Enneagram.
“It’s about, ‘how do I block my heart from giving and receiving love?’”
On Thursday, a group of spiritual directors and clergy gathered at Church Health for a workshop to learn more about the Enneagram, a tool that maps out nine personality types, delving into the strengths, struggles and dominant emotions of each type.
The Enneagram isn’t a new system. Parts of it, including its symbol with nine points in a circle, are ancient. But in the past few years, the system has taken off among faith communities who are using it in Bible studies, in therapy sessions, on retreats and in individual spiritual practice.
Why the Enneagram of Personality is becoming popular with Christians and other faith groups https://t.co/oP7PapysqR
— The Jackson Sun (@JSunNews) February 4, 2020
Says Lewis, “There is nothing we can do with suffering, except to suffer it.”
We know that advice from other people can sound a lot like well-meaning white noise. Or like a line separating the grieving from everybody else in the normal world. It makes me wish we learned a bit more from cultures who carve out space for mourning, like the Jewish custom of “sitting Shiva” where friends and family gather for seven days together in silence. Or how people in Greece and Portugal encourage widows to wear black for months, creating a reminder for others of their loss.
We all need a bit of permission to allow ourselves time and space to feel the weight of loss, and move through it in our own way. My friend and former cello teacher lost her husband last year, and the week after the funeral, to the chagrin of those thought she should be taking a break, there she was at the piano accompanying the services as she always did. That was her way of living through her loss, with keys under her fingers, helping others the way she always did.
So my dears, what can then be said of grief except that is the burden of love? It can’t be defined or drawn, only suffered. But what must be said, what must be given, is the permission to feel it. All of it. Not as a state, but as a process. No one can tell you what that process must be for you, just now. So gently, gently, let it lead you through.
“Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?’ #CSLewis A Grief Observed #grief #loss #death #wisdom #theology #anthropology pic.twitter.com/rHbPgbwOko
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 5, 2020
For these arguments to succeed, especially with other American conservatives, Reno and Lowry have to convince us of three things:
These are no small concerns, and they are fed in many hearts by the sneers of a thin-souled and contemptuous cosmopolitanism, by educational systems that aspire feebly to little more than “critical thinking,” and by immigration policies that cannot seem to distinguish between huddled masses yearning to breathe free and outright colonization. Indeed, there were many moments in reading both books when I resonated with the losses they so tellingly itemize.
Yet their arguments must also come to terms with the reminder, on the back of every one-dollar bill, that the American republic is a novus ordo seclorum…
Sermons are a major part of many churchgoers’ religious experiences. But there are differences by religious tradition in how satisfied churchgoers are with what they hear from the pulpit – as well as in the length and content of those sermons, according to two recent Pew Research Center studies.
An opinion survey of 6,364 U.S. adults conducted in 2019 found that 90% of Christians who attend worship services at least a few times a year are satisfied with the sermons they hear, though Protestants are somewhat more satisfied than Catholics.
Six-in-ten evangelical Protestants (61%) say they are “very satisfied” with the sermons they hear, almost twice as many as those who say they’re “somewhat satisfied” (32%). Among Catholics, only about a third (32%) say they’re “very satisfied,” while roughly half (52%) say they are “somewhat satisfied.” Catholics also have a higher share of respondents who say they’re “not too” or “not at all” satisfied (15% vs. 7% for Protestants).
Sermons are a major part of many churchgoers’ religious experiences. But there are differences by religious tradition in how satisfied churchgoers are with what they hear from the pulpit – as well as in the length and content of those sermons. https://t.co/2gdSKb7ojI
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) January 28, 2020
Almighty and everlasting God, who didst strengthen thy martyr Agatha with constancy and courage: Grant us for the love of thee to make no peace with oppression, to fear no adversity, and to have no tolerance for those who wouldst use their power to abuse or exploit; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
5 Feb 😇 St Agatha of Sicily, 231-251 early #Christian #Martyr 🎨 Alessandro Turchi pic.twitter.com/ko7GLRkrqU
— McCrimmons (@Mccrimmons) February 5, 2017
Remember, O Lord, what Thou hast wrought in us, and not what we deserve; and, as Thou hast called us to Thy service, make us worthy of our calling; 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)
A beautiful caricature of Joseph Armitage Robinson, vicar of All Saints’, Cambridge 1888-1892. This cartoon featured in Vanity Fair in Dec 1905 under the banner “Men of the Day”. Come in on Saturday and see his church for yourself 10:00-17:00 #HeritageOpenDays #OpenCambridge pic.twitter.com/yX0RLA17Zs
— All Saints Cambridge (@AllSaintsCam) September 10, 2018
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name for ever; may his glory fill the whole earth! Amen and Amen!
–Psalm 72:18-19
THE QUESTION:
Can students pray in U.S. public schools?
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:
The Trump Administration’s education and justice departments, after work with government attorneys, issued policy guidance to public schools January 16 on this emotional-laden and oft-misunderstood issue. The answer is well settled in American law and agreed upon by a very wide range of religious and public education organizations.
Yes, depending.
Yes, if a student initiates prayer and does not disrupt classes. Students also enjoy other religious rights on an equal basis with non-religious activities, as surveyed below. But the answer is no if public school systems, administrators or teachers authorize prayers in an official capacity. Federal court edicts say that violates the Constitution’s ban on government “establishment of religion.” (Private schools, of course, can do whatever they want about religion.)
Bishop Jane Alexander, bishop of the diocese of Edmonton, says she will be stepping down from her position July 31, with “no idea” what she will be doing next.
“I have no need to say, ‘What’s the next big thing?’ The big thing is always just serving Jesus wherever he puts you,” says Alexander. “So, I know that’s what I’ll be called to do, but what that looks like? I have no idea.”
Alexander announced her resignation in a letter January 26.
In an interview with the Journal, Alexander said that she had been feeling a change coming for a while. “Sometimes I think we think of discernment as something that happens once and then we go, ‘There, you’re done.’ But that’s never been my experience of it. I think we get called into places and called out of places, and I was aware…easily a year ago, that something different was changing…. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m actually being called out of diocesan episcopal ministry.”
4 Feb 1906: Dietrich #Bonhoeffer is born in #Breslau, then in Germany. He was a #pastor, spy, anti-Nazi dissident. He was arrested and accused of participating in Operation Valkyrie, a plot to #assassinate Hitler. He was hanged on April 9, 1945 in Flossenbürg concentration camp. pic.twitter.com/09xx3aQQcV
— Today In History (@URDailyHistory) February 4, 2020
The East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn needs $250,000 to replace its aging roof and another $250,000 to repair the water-damaged ceiling of its sanctuary, its director said. Then there is the aging boiler — the size of a small apartment — that has needed $20,000 worth of maintenance so far this winter.
Looming over those everyday concerns is something more existential: keeping everyone in the 96-year-old building alive and well at a time of rising anti-Semitism in New York and around the country.
Enhancing security for Jewish institutions, and how to pay for it, has become an urgent issue for religious leaders and local and state governments.
“I lose sleep over this building every night because I care about this institution and I want to protect it and I need the money to do it,” said Wayne Rosenfeld, the executive director of the synagogue, which provides Hebrew lessons for 50 students twice a week and social events for 150 older people on weekdays.
With anti-Semitism on the rise, including violent and deadly attacks in the New York area, security measures — and how to pay for them — have become an urgent issue for Jewish institutions. My first story as Metro religion reporter: https://t.co/6GUYgLblz1
— Liam Stack (@liamstack) February 4, 2020
Bill Goettler, associate dean at YDS, says that a quarter of YDS students indicate an interest in taking courses at the SOM, though only a small fraction of that number follow through. By making it a requirement, Andover Newton is nudging people toward a kind of learning that, on some level, they realize they need.
Perhaps most interesting is the way new theological questions can arise in business classes. Washington shared an example of how this happened in the course Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations. “I had to answer questions like whether or not nonprofits were supposed to work to no longer be needed, which led me to ask myself this same question as it relates to denominations and churches.”
As long as the world still needs churches, it needs a learned clergy, and the clergy need whatever education is called for by the times. Today congregations are calling out for multidimensional leaders, and business education is rounding out an increasingly important dimension of pastoral ministry.
The Rector of St Leonard’s, Streatham, the Revd Anna Norman-Walker, has praised the “resilience and neighbourliness” of the diverse south-London community, after a suspected terrorist stabbed two people just metres from the rectory before being shot dead by police, on Sunday afternoon.
The man, named as Sudesh Amman, aged 20, was wearing a fake suicide vest when he stole a kitchen knife from a general store and stabbed a man and a woman on Streatham High Road. He was chased by plain-clothes officers before being shot several times by uniformed police.
Ms Norman-Walker was arriving back at the rectory, at about 2 p.m., when she heard gunshots. “My daughter and I just got back from the church brunch, and we heard gunshots,” she said on Monday.
“We thought it was a car back-firing, but it was five consecutive bangs. Suddenly, people came down our road, just off the High Road, and very quickly — within minutes — police cars were blocking the road, cordoned tape went up, and helicopters came down. It was quite extraordinary.”
LATEST. The Rector of St Leonard’s, Streatham, the Revd @anormanwalker , has praised the “resilience and neighbourliness” of the diverse south-London community, after a suspected terrorist stabbed two people just metres from the rectoryhttps://t.co/UphAjK1Y7a
— Hattie Williams (@hattieewilliams) February 3, 2020
Based on reports from its state chapters and local media, CAN estimates 5 million people marched in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states on Sunday.
“Though we have protested before, this event took a new dimension,” CAN president Samson Ayokunle told CT.
“With one voice, we said ‘no’ to killings, ‘no’ to security negligence, and ‘no’ to the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. It is a wake-up call to the government.”
“Lord, have mercy on Nigeria, let there be peace and security. God sees all things and knows where the terrorists are hiding. We pray that God send his light to Nigeria and expose the evildoers in the country.” https://t.co/HMo8HZgEGs
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 4, 2020
O God, who by thy Spirit didst call Cornelius the Centurion to be the first Christian among the Gentiles: Grant to thy Church, we beseech thee, such a ready will to go where thou dost send and to do what thou dost command, that under thy guidance it may welcome all who turn to thee in love and faith, and proclaim the Gospel to all nations; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
February 2nd is the feast of Saint Cornelius the Centurion, a patrician and God-fearer stationed in Caesarea Maritima with the Cohors II Italica Civium Romanorum, and the first Gentile convert to Christianity. pic.twitter.com/fhWLsrvXyJ
— Tradical (@NoTrueScotist) February 2, 2020
Grant me, gracious Lord, a pure intention of my heart, and a steadfast regard to Thy glory in all my actions. Possess my mind continually with Thy presence, and ravish it with Thy love, that my only delight may be, to be embraced in the arms of Thy protection.
–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)
Upon becoming Bishop of Durham, John Cosin remodelled the great hall as a new chapel, befitting the status of the Prince Bishops. You can see inside the chapel this Sunday, as part of @heritageopenday : https://t.co/aJhoDtbQ2a pic.twitter.com/0sPdUhZdpx
— The Auckland Project (@aucklandproject) September 11, 2019
Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings!
–Psalm 61:1-4
A religious literacy programme will be rolled out to ensure that civil servants and diplomats are no longer ignorant of the dire threats facing Christians around the world.
Sir Desmond Swayne, a leading Conservative campaigner for religious liberty, said: “This is all part of global Britain… This is us now reaching out with our soft power, using our diplomacy to defend religious freedom.”
The new training package will also give Government staff a crash course in the importance of religion to billions of people – and it may make damaging diplomatic blunders less likely.
There was embarrassment in 2018 when Britain’s most senior diplomat had to apologise for calling one of the holiest Sikh sites a mosque.
Research by the campaigning charity Open Doors suggests the persecution of Christians is getting worse, with “an average of eight Christians” killed for their faith every day last year, and 23 were “raped or sexually harassed for faith-related reasons”. It found North Korea was the country with the worst record on persecution, followed by Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and Pakistan.
How Christian persecution overseas is set to become UK priority
The issue has risen up the Government’s agenda and will be debated by MPs this week.https://t.co/d5O8fMn1xY— APPG FoRB (@APPGFoRB) February 3, 2020
But then we had a significant number of Bishops coming out and criticising their own statement with a kind of passive-aggressive, pseudo-spiritual language that is actually very disingenuous. Oh yes, they don’t overtly reject the statement per se – it’s just the way it came out, the timing of it, the wording that was used – as though introducing a few swirly flower motifs in the margins, changing the font from ‘Times New Roman’ to ‘Comic Sans’, and sending the whole thing out in a gift-wrapped presentation box with a free Parker pen was all that was required to satisfy them.
But this doesn’t fool anyone, does it? We all know that what many, probably most, of these objecting Bishops really mean is, ‘We don’t support that statement.’ In other words, they disagree with their own church’s teaching (not to mention that of most other denominations also). And thus the scene was set for a reportedly somewhat ‘lively’ meeting of the College of Bishops last week.
Out of that came a second statement – about the first statement – in which the Archbishops of Canterbury and York apologised for any ‘hurt caused’. The words used were of such wonderfully ambiguous Anglican-speak that the Church of England media office apparently had to spend most of its time and energy making it clear to media outlets that, no, they were not retracting their original statement, and, no, nothing had changed. Except whatever it was that had. Or hadn’t. Or something.
I scarcely need to spell out what this does for the morale of many clergy on the ground. And heaven help our watching parishioners. So what are we to do? The New Testament would seem to recommend expelling those who contradict established church teaching on moral issues (1 Corinthians 5). But this somehow seems to have been supplanted in recent years by Justin Welby’s assertion that ‘we don’t chuck out those we disagree with’. It’s a lovely sentiment, redolent of the touchy-feely era in which we live. But I can’t really relate this to apostolic teaching on church discipline at all.
A polite request to C of E bishops: Please stop traumatising your clergy https://t.co/jwKusulRg4
— David Ayshford Baker (@Baker_David_A) February 3, 2020
George Steiner, a literary polymath and man of letters whose voluminous criticism often dealt with the paradox of literature’s moral power and its impotence in the face of an event like the Holocaust, died on Monday at his home in Cambridge, England. He was 90.
His death was confirmed by his son, Dr. David Steiner.
An essayist, fiction writer, teacher, scholar and literary critic — he succeeded Edmund Wilson as senior book reviewer for The New Yorker from 1966 until 1997 — Mr. Steiner both dazzled and dismayed his readers with the range and occasional obscurity of his literary references.
Essential to his views, as he avowed in “Grammars of Creation,” a book based on the Gifford Lectures he delivered at the University of Glasgow in 1990, “is my astonishment, naïve as it seems to people, that you can use human speech both to love, to build, to forgive, and also to torture, to hate, to destroy and to annihilate.”
George Steiner, the essayist, fiction writer, teacher, scholar and literary critic, has died at 90: https://t.co/HJXFxCYDim
— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) February 3, 2020
This is a story about the cruelest disease you have never heard of. It’s called frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. And given the devastating toll it takes on its victims and their families, it ought to be much better known than it is.
FTD is the number one form of dementia in Americans under the age of 60. What causes it is unclear, but it attacks the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, which control personality and speech, and it’s always fatal. It is not Alzheimer’s disease, which degrades the part of the brain responsible for memory.
With FTD, people either display such bizarre behavior that their loved ones can hardly recognize them, or they lose the ability to recognize themselves. As we first reported in May, that’s what happened to Tracey Lind one day a few years ago as she was standing in a public restroom.
Frontotemporal dementia: Devastating, prevalent and little understood https://t.co/FSS7YndwyB pic.twitter.com/oHXxCcxJz5
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 6, 2019
You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.
Presentation of the Lord
Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
c. 1342
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence pic.twitter.com/QlKtLC4bqW— Amigo de Frodo (@bpdflores) February 2, 2019
Simeon’s remarks are set within a hymn known as the Nunc Dimittis, from the Latin of the hymn’s opening phrase. The prophecy itself is a statement of mature faith. Simeon can die in peace as you have promised and be taken by God, his Sovereign Lord (despota or Master), because my eyes have seen your salvation. There is a significant equation in this remark. To see Jesus is to see God’s salvation. They are inseparable. There is joy, even in the face of death, when one has seen the source of life. Simeon’s job as a sentinel for Messiah is done. The Lord can take him home. Simeon pictures a faithful servant who is at home in God’s purpose and plan, even when his time is up.
–Darrell L. Bock, Luke (The IVP New Testament Commentary Series) [Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP, 1994], quoted in part in the morning sermon
The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
by James Tissot, 1894Anna The Prophetess, Preaching at the Temple pic.twitter.com/LTdt8wfG3p
— Kalina Boulter (@KalinaBoulter) December 30, 2017
Patrick Mahomes needed just the waning minutes of Super Bowl 54 to end a whole lot of frustration.
A championship 50 years in the making for the Kansas City Chiefs.
A two-decade wait for an NFL title for coach Andy Reid.
All it took was falling behind by double digits in the postseason, again. Then Mahomes found his mojo. The 24-year-old quarterback who was selected Super Bowl MVP, led the Chiefs to 21 straight points in the final 6:13 for a 31-20 victory Sunday over the San Francisco 49ers.
“We never lost faith,” Mahomes said. “That’s the biggest thing. Everybody on this team, no one had their head down. We believed in each other. That’s what we preached all year long.”
The Chiefs have won their first Super Bowl since 1969 🏆 #SBLIV pic.twitter.com/f0lVBmdsPX
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) February 3, 2020
Holy God, who didst inspire the Dorchester chaplains to be models of steadfast sacrificial love in a tragic and terrifying time: Help us to follow their example, that their courageous ministry may inspire chaplains and all who serve, to recognize thy presence in the midst of peril; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
#OTD 1961: The Four Chaplains Comm. Medal awarded to family of those who went down with USAT Dorchester Feb. 1943. https://t.co/lsZmluxDXx pic.twitter.com/mO5NK5Fe5u
— National Museum USAF (@AFmuseum) January 18, 2017