Myrtle Beach, the financial heart of South Carolina’s tourism economy, will allow hotels and short-term rentals to start once again.

An emergency order by the city to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus expires Friday. In a City Council meeting held by teleconference Thursday, elected leaders of the beach town approved a new emergency order that will not stop hotels from renting.

Officials said they felt it would not be legal, given recent orders by Gov. Henry McMaster, to continue to bar rentals.

Read it all.

SC largest tourist destination – Myrtle Beach – is reopening hotels after #coronavirus crackdown https://t.co/UODqgHfA0G

— Andy Shain (@AndyShain) April 30, 2020

The most tempting way to keep account of time these days is in increments of how long it will take for things to go back to the way they were. Will it take four weeks, eight weeks, all summer, a year? How long until we can put all this behind us?

I long for the day when I can teach in a classroom and worship in a church and fly on a plane to visit my parents. Love makes me count the hours. But keeping account of time by love with the saints also means resisting the desire to go back to the way things were. Because that way is marked by economic and social inequality that has made the burden of this virus fall hardest on the most disadvantaged, by a health-care system that leaves so many unprotected, by the ridiculously low pay that people doing the most necessary jobs receive. None of this can be accounted for by love. It’s not enough to want our old life back. Especially in the season of Easter, we are called to make room for more life—not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned through the work of social distancing, it’s that everyone’s life matters to everyone else’s. As we struggle to inhabit the time we have been given, that’s a measurement by which to keep account of our days.

Read it all.

Listen to the faith message of one immensely influential prosperity preacher:

To live your best life now, you must start looking at life through eyes of faith, seeing yourself rising to new levels. See your business taking off. See your marriage restored. See your family prospering. See your dreams coming to pass. You must conceive it and believe it is possible if you ever hope to experience it… To experience [God’s] immeasurable favor, you must rid yourself of that small-minded thinking and start expecting God’s blessings, start anticipating promotion and supernatural increase. You must conceive it in your heart and mind before you can receive it. In other words, you must make room for increase in your own thinking, then God will bring those things to pass. Until you learn how to enlarge your vision, seeing the future through your eyes of faith, your own wrong thinking will prevent good things from happening in your life. God will not pour fresh, creative ideas and blessings into old attitudes.

For the prosperity preachers, faith is our work to win God’s approval. For the Reformers faith is God’s gift to us. Why? Because Cranmer and his fellow reformers realized that faith was a matter of trust. The more God reveals himself to his people, the more they will see that he is trustworthy, and the more their faith will grow. According to the Reformers, faith is what God is pleased to work in believers, not something believers work at to please God.

Read it all.

“Can you not see,” I said, “that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is—what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world?

–GK Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“There are a hundred improved means of communication, and there is nothing to communicate.” GK #Chesterton, The Illustrated London News, 2nd October 1926 pic.twitter.com/d6Cz0Qvgef

— Catholic Chesterton (@CatholicGKCSoc) April 26, 2020

Enjoy it all.

Lyrics:

This joyful Easter-tide,
Away with care and sorrow!
My Love, the Crucified,
Hath sprung to life this morrow.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Neer burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!

My flesh in hope shall rest,
And for a season slumber;
Till trump from east to west,
Shall wake the dead in number.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Neer burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!

Deaths flood hath lost his chill,
Since Jesus crossed the river:
Lover of souls, from ill
My passing soul deliver.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Neer burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!

The leader of the largest Anglican diocese in the country, Sydney Archbishop Glenn Davies has spoken of the hope Jesus brings in declaring that the joy of Easter will not be extinguished by the coronavirus.

“I was asked by a television reporter recently whether COVID-19 is the virus that killed Easter,” Archbishop Davies said in his annual Easter message. “My answer was a resounding no!”

“Like you, I am astounded by what I am seeing as each day passes. We have never experienced a crisis quite like this before. We have so many fears – unemployment, loneliness, the safety of our loved ones. Of course, the greatest fear of all from this virus is the fear of death. But the message of Easter is that death has been conquered.”

Read it all.

Archbishop Miguel and his wife, Juliane, report that lockdown has provided opportunities for the gospel. Their church’s online service has had 2.8k views on YouTube, which is a big increase on the normal number. They have also started a daily online devotional and many have appreciated this, and some are coming to faith.

Read it all.

Gafcon Moment & #Prayer 30 April 2020 https://t.co/MBxR1mKwlD #anglican #brazil

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 30, 2020

Gracious God, we bless thy Name for the vision and witness of Sarah Hale, whose advocacy for the ministry of women helped to support the deaconess movement. Make us grateful for thy many blessings, that we may come closer to Christ in our own families; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

155 yrs ago Lincoln made the official proclamation of fixing the national observation of Thanksgiving on the final Thursday in November, a move he hoped would help “heal the wounds of the nation.”
Sarah Hale deserves credit for her 30 yr relentless push to to make it official pic.twitter.com/nJl4Qwb8jT

— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) November 22, 2018

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for all who believe in Him; to whom with thee, O Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all honour and glory, dominion and power, now and for evermore.

Happy Easter @WorcCathedral @CofEWorcester pic.twitter.com/0y70ORu14T

— Worcester Cathedral (@WorcCathedral) April 16, 2017

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you. “You shall not kill. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” Now when all the people perceived the thunderings and the lightnings and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled; and they stood afar off, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.” And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to prove you, and that the fear of him may be before your eyes, that you may not sin.” And the people stood afar off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

–Exodus 20:1-21