Almighty God, who hast set thy law of love ever before us: Grant us thy grace that we may never harbour any resentment or ill-feeling in our hearts, but seek at all times the way of reconciliation and peace, according to the teaching of thy Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Good morning from Garden City! Beautiful Kathy Dowling. #scwx #ncwx pic.twitter.com/WwfoiA9h4o
— Ed Piotrowski (@EdPiotrowski) July 17, 2021
Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Be-el′zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him, and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house.
“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
–Mark 3:19-35
Sunrise over the Ashley and Cooper Rivers! #chswx pic.twitter.com/IFsC18x4re
— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) July 16, 2021
The first ever 3D-printed steel bridge has opened in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was created by robotic arms using welding torches to deposit the structure of the bridge layer by layer, and is made of 4500 kilograms of stainless steel.
The 12-metre-long MX3D Bridge was built by four commercially available industrial robots and took six months to print. The structure was transported to its location over the Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal in central Amsterdam last week and is now open to pedestrians and cyclists.
More than a dozen sensors attached to the bridge after the printing was completed will monitor strain, movement, vibration and temperature across the structure as people pass over it and the weather changes. This data will be fed into a digital model of the bridge.
The world's first 3D-printed steel bridge opens in Amsterdam!🤩🌉 Co-developed by our engineers @ImperialCiveng and @MX3D_AM, the bridge is over four years in the making and was unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. https://t.co/JL6S23UATI
— Imperial College (@imperialcollege) July 15, 2021
Congregationl singing and the common cup at the eucharist will be allowed in England once again from Monday, church authorities have confirmed, despite the sharp rise in coronavirus cases. It will be up to clergy and PCCs to decide whether to retain precautions such as face coverings, social distancing, and communion in one kind.
The latest Church of England guidance was published late on Friday afternoon, in preparation for Monday’s removal of restrictions in England. The move coincided with the news that reported daily cases in the UK had passed 50,000, and a warning by the Government’s chief medical adviser, Professor Chris Whitty, that hospital admissions could reach “scary numbers”. Different timetables for relaxing Covid restrictions have been set by the governments of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, who heads the Church’s Covid recovery group, welcomed the relaxation of restrictions, including what she described as the “long-awaited return of congregational and amateur choir singing”, but she also urged caution.
“This is a difficult point in the course of the pandemic. Despite vaccination rates, cases are up, hospital admissions are up, and long Covid remains an ongoing concern. Therefore our approach needs to be cautious and careful,” she said.
Latest church Covid advice: proceed with caution https://t.co/Zf2UBLLBCt from @churchtimes
— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) July 16, 2021
When it comes to stories about prolific gamete donors, it’s typically sperm donors and sperm banks who get the attention for producing donor siblings families in the dozens—and sometimes in the hundreds. In recent years, stories have surfaced about donor siblings connecting through private Facebook groups, and often finding their donors through DNA tests. Who can forget the 2013 Vince Vaughn comedy, Delivery Man, about a childless man having a midlife crisis who discovers that he had fathered over 500 kids conceived with sperm he donated in his youth. These are the extreme consequences of the age of “collaborative reproduction,” a term coined by the late John Robertson, a law professor and bioethicist at the University of Texas at Austin, to describe the expanded array of civil rights for LGBTQ+ families, lifestyle choices, and medically assisted methods of reproduction available to 21st century families. A large and growing component of collaborative reproduction is the increasingly open roles that surrogates and gamete donors often play in these modern families.
It’s less common, however, to hear stories of such prolific egg donors like Tyra. At a time when so many Millennials like her have become less interested in marriage and children and are also delaying having children for their careers, she is a new kind of female fertility archetype: nurturing and distant at the same time. She fulfills her sense of altruism and her desire to procreate, but in a directly transactional way, selling access to her body and body parts for her own financial gain and freedom. “I’d say it’s 50 percent business, 50 percent having a purpose,” she says. “I never fall into a career. I always thought I’d be a professional athlete between volleyball and golf. And I got my pilot’s license at a young age, but I never fell into my niche. I feel like maybe procreating for others is it.”
With 27 biological children and three surrogate pregnancies under her belt, it’s all business as usual for Tyra Reeder.https://t.co/P9V4PthXDW
— NEO.LIFE (@NEOdotLIFE) July 15, 2021
It is interesting that nowhere in the New Testament or in the great reformation debates over adiaphora was the concept applied to issues of doctrine or moral behaviour. Paul didn’t consider differences over the doctrine of justification by faith to be matters of indifference. He was willing to confront Peter head-on if necessary. Jesus didn’t treat differences over the appropriate expression of human sexuality to be matters of indifference. Adultery and homosexuality remain behaviours which God himself condemns. God has spoken on these issues and our job is not to make room for difference but to be humble enough to be changed in our thinking and/or behaviour so that our minds and lives conform to God’s word written.
There is a lot of woolly thinking going on at the moment about adiaphora. People are trying to extend the term in ways that will insulate them from challenge about their doctrine or their behaviour. Let’s not let the term be inflated in meaning in this way. As a now standard variation from the old Catholic axiom has it: sacra scriptura locuta est, res decisa est (‘Holy Scripture having spoken, the matter is decided’). We need to talk to each other and study together when it comes to issues on which Scripture has spoken. On very rare occasions this study will reveal that Scripture itself considers the matter secondary or indifferent, as in the case of circumcision or meat offered to idols. But more often than not freedom to differ is reserved for those areas on which Scripture has not spoken.
Read Principal Mark Thompson's review of 'What Do Anglicans Believe?' published in the latest issue of 'The Global Anglican' in 2020. https://t.co/6J7XgQUQkz pic.twitter.com/0v0sVCi3sX
— Moore College (@MooreCollege) December 27, 2020
Farron also believes that honesty and integrity in public office holders are key factors that have been largely missing in much of public life both in government and the church. He said, “we’ve almost got to the point where there’s little accountability”. He went on, “All lead by example—either good or bad”.
He thinks JKA Smith’s book, ‘Awaiting the King’ offers a pretty good explanation of the current situation. Farron said in one portion, “King refers to ‘western liberal democracies bearing the crater marks of the gospel’ and agreeing explained; “even though we may not largely be a Christian country today, our values, norms and institutions are nevertheless based on a Christian world view: justice, grace, personal responsibility, care for the needy, the knowledge that if people are sinners then you don’t want power concentrated in the hands of too few of them! The ‘crater marks’ point is more that as we move away from Christianity, then those marks will become fainter and fainter until such point that integrity may matter less and less”.
When asked about what he sees as the next big moral issues facing the nation he was quick and to the point: 1.) “the effort to decriminalise all abortion up to the point of birth”; and, 2.) “assisted dying”. He does not believe that the former will find the support necessary to be approved by parliament and that assisted dying will be a big battle.
.@timfarron interviewed by @1761Ec: 'When asked about what he sees as the next big moral issues facing the nation he was quick and to the point: 1.) “the effort to decriminalise all abortion up to the point of birth”; and, 2.) “assisted dying”.'
Quite so.https://t.co/CAstW3TNCw— Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) July 16, 2021
He has not been able to speak since 2003, when he was paralyzed at age 20 by a severe stroke after a terrible car crash.
Now, in a scientific milestone, researchers have tapped into the speech areas of his brain — allowing him to produce comprehensible words and sentences simply by trying to say them. When the man, known by his nickname, Pancho, tries to speak, electrodes implanted in his brain transmit signals to a computer that displays his intended words on the screen.
His first recognizable sentence, researchers said, was, “My family is outside.”
The achievement, published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, could eventually help many patients with conditions that steal their ability to talk.
“This is farther than we’ve ever imagined we could go,” said Melanie Fried-Oken, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University, who was not involved in the project.
"Getting a second chance to talk again.” Researchers are using electrodes to tap into the speech areas of a paralyzed man's brain — allowing him to produce recognizable words and sentences simply by trying to say them. https://t.co/yOU0bQ38kt
— Pam Belluck (@PamBelluck) July 14, 2021
O God, who hast called us out of the bondage of sin into the perfect freedom of thy children: Grant us grace that we may yield ourselves unto thee as alive from the dead, and our bodily members as servants of righteousness; that we may have our fruit unto holiness, and in the end everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Waves of mist over Boho Fermanagh this morning @StormHour pic.twitter.com/AaykePnfGJ
— Tom Gilroy photography (@tomgilroy33) July 16, 2021
‘But I trust in thee, O Lord,
I say, “Thou art my God.”
My times are in thy hand’
–Psalm 31:14-15a
She’s going to be a hot one today by the look of the #sunrise here off #Brixham pic.twitter.com/Ep81Aa06Nv
— Alan Dwan (@Alan_J_Dwan) July 16, 2021
The South African government plans to deploy 25,000 troops after days of widespread looting and violence.
The military deployment – to counter riots sparked by the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma – would be the biggest since the end of apartheid.
At least 117 people have died and more than 2,000 have been arrested in South Africa’s worst unrest in years.
Hundreds of shops and businesses have been looted and the government says it is acting to prevent food shortages.
Citizens are arming themselves and forming vigilante groups to protect their property from the rampage.
South African government to deploy 25,000 troops after worst unrest in years https://t.co/BgwZrZRIOi
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 15, 2021
At the same time, a new study led by scientists at NOAA, the University of Hawaii and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed that Charleston will hit an inflection point in 2025, ushering in a decade of even more tidal events because of the compounding effects of sea-level rise on top of the quirks of the moon’s orbit around the Earth.
On a call with reporters on July 14, NOAA oceanographer William Sweet said that the Southeastern United States, in particular, has consistently outstripped tidal flooding projections of late. In 2019, for example, persistently swollen oceans swamped the coast from Florida through the mid-Atlantic. Charleston’s flooding tally from 2020 to 2021 was also double what federal scientists had forecast the year before.
Charleston had a record-breaking amount of significant tidal flooding from May 2020 to April 2021, according to officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://t.co/ibDQVMSZfn
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) July 15, 2021
Rutledge repeats a cycle of sober assessment and hope — a hope that is expressly found in Christ. Readers of The Crucifixion will observe that her magnum opus really was the result of a lifelong, cruciform ministry. She reiterates Paul’s exhortation that all are unrighteous and that we must be saved by a power outside of ourselves.
[Jesus] is willing to die even for such poor specimens as you and me, covering our unrighteousness with his righteousness, offering his life to save us from death, victorious over the old Adam, the Judge judged in our place. He has compensated for our too-short list of good deeds by his one great deed.
The sermons are varied and based upon an array of scripture readings, yet more often than not Rutledge sets our gaze on the crucified and resurrected Christ. As I read through Means of Grace, I realized why I am drawn to the writings of Fleming Rutledge: she can’t stop talking about the core event that changed the history of the cosmos. My soul needs to hear the story of Christ’s death, resurrection, and future coming over and over again. I’m not sure that another self-help sermon will change my life. I am not convinced that a preacher will provide five steps to resolve my anxiety, improve my self-esteem, etc. But the problems I face, and perhaps the problems you face, seem far less daunting when nestled within God’s bigger story.
"…I realized why I am drawn to the writings of Fleming Rutledge: she can’t stop talking about the core event that changed the history of the cosmos. My soul needs to hear the story of Christ’s death, resurrection, and future coming over and over again."https://t.co/L1koGyNAes
— Rosdahl (@rosevalley52) July 14, 2021
But since restaurants in the state were allowed to fully reopen on May 29, the treatment of the Apt Cape Cod’s 24 employees, many of whom are young and who include the couple’s two children, had gotten worse.
“It’s like abuse,” she said. “It’s things that people are saying that wouldn’t be allowed to be on TV because they would be bleeped. People are always rude to restaurant workers, but this far exceeds anything I’ve seen in my 20 years.”
Felt Castellano, 39, said that some customers had assumed that it would be business as usual, but had not grasped that restaurants were still grappling with staffing and supply shortages. That can mean that wait times are longer and that some items on the menu are not available, which she said has been a source of some of the verbal abuse toward the restaurant’s employees. When a group of diners didn’t get the table that they had requested, she said, they threatened to sue.
“I would say that it is its own epidemic,” she said.
The restaurant’s Facebook post resonated with many people online, who condemned the boorish behavior.
The meanness that some express toward people in service and in leadership has become ridiculous. The way we can talk to and treat one another when it is rude, entitled, complaining, and mean needs to stop. We are in desperate need of kindness. What a sad and important story here. https://t.co/ezud3Ro1B1
— Alan Cross (@AlanLCross) July 14, 2021
“After Tia Wimbush and Susan Ellis connected over their husbands’ kidney failures and a long transplant waiting list — a serendipitous moment occurred. Tia and Susan realized they matched blood types for each other’s spouse. Several months later and after a smooth recovery, the pair say they are now family.”
Watch it all.
O God, our Father, we pray for thy Church, which is set today amid the perplexities of a changing order, and face to face with new tasks. Baptize her afresh in the life-giving spirit of Jesus. Bestow upon her a greater responsiveness to duty, a swifter compassion with suffering, and an utter loyalty to the will of God. Help her to proclaim boldly the coming of the Kingdom of God. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give up her life to humanity; that, like her crucified Master, she may mount by the path of the cross to a higher glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
—-Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)
Beautiful orangy sky and slight sun pillar at sunrise over Washington DC this morning @capitalweather @StormHour @washingtondc pic.twitter.com/hA6TmCzu00
— C on the scene (@Conthescene) July 15, 2021
Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyre’ne, Man’a-en a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleu’cia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Sal’amis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But El’ymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) withstood them, seeking to turn away the proconsul from the faith. But Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.
–Acts 13:1-12
#Got a shot of this guy hiding in the brush. He didnt seem to mind me.https://t.co/3fJfIdlCf2 pic.twitter.com/3WqoWfdnAE
— Nature & Animals🌴 (@naturezem) July 15, 2021
The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives well enough to be considered “thriving” on Gallup’s Live Evaluation Index reached 59.2% in June, the highest in over 13 years of ongoing measurement and exceeding the previous high of 57.3% from September 2017. During the initial COVID-19 outbreak and economic shutdown, the thriving percentage plunged nearly 10 percentage points to 46.4% by late April 2020, tying the record low last measured during the Great Recession.
The most recent results, captured June 14-20, 2021, are based on 4,820 U.S. adults surveyed by web as a part of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based, non-opt-in panel of about 120,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup classifies Americans as “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in five years an 8 or higher are classified as thriving.
A record-high 59.2% of Americans now rate their lives highly enough to be considered thriving. https://t.co/t85Tqb2qO1
— GallupNews (@GallupNews) July 7, 2021
The increase came as no surprise to addiction specialists, drug counselors and policy experts who have watched the steady rise in deaths throughout the pandemic. But that did not make the statistics any less horrifying.
“Every one of those people, somebody loved them,” said Keith Humphreys, a psychiatry professor at Stanford University and an expert on addiction and drug policy. “It’s terrifying. It’s the biggest increase in overdose deaths in the history of the United States, it’s the worst overdose crisis in the history of the United States, and we’re not making progress. It’s really overwhelming.”
U.S. drug overdose deaths surged nearly 30 percent in 2020, reflecting toll of pandemic https://t.co/VUc3GdPmAN
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 14, 2021
The Wedding Dress; And Why I Tithe….
By Susan Clarkson Keller, St. Philip’s Church, Charleston
I began tithing sometime after college, when I began my first job. Despite being a young believer, I understood that tithing was a way to show God how much I trusted Him to provide for me.
Then a speaker came to St. Philip’s in the mid-1980s, whose message greatly impacted my thinking about giving. I was challenged not only to tithe, but to see everything I had as God’s and to realize what a blessing it would be to give more and more to the work of the Kingdom, in and out of the church. I decided then to start tithing my gross income… which was a big step for me. Since that time, I have experienced the faithfulness of God in providing for me in some truly remarkable ways….
The Latest Edition of the #Anglican Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter https://t.co/nPK8Lq6dwY #parishministry #anglican #religion #southcarolina #communications pic.twitter.com/akya2tigla
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 14, 2021
In this post, let me mention another way we can address this problem, and that is by fixing the one thing that is missing in most sermons today.
In my role as a seminary professor, I have heard a lot of sermons over the years. Some of these are from students preparing for ministry, but many are from seasoned pastors who’ve been in the pulpit for years.
And these sermons seem designed to do many positive things: inform, proclaim, teach, explain, illuminate, clarify, comfort, encourage, and motivate. And, sometimes, they do some less positive things: entertain, titillate, speculate, charm, beguile, and even amuse.
But there is one thing that very few sermons do, and that is persuade.
Now, a persuasive sermon may not be what you think. For most people, the word brings to mind formal “apologetics” where we make the case for Christianity over and against other worldviews.
And while some formal apologetics may be involved, I am using “persuade” here to refer to how a pastor might seek to show that any particular Christian doctrine, truth or behavior is genuinely wonderful, excellent, and worthy of our lives, and thereby better than any other alternative that is out there.
Here's the one critical thing missing from most sermons, according to Dr. @MichaelJKruger. https://t.co/lugwHzpZiR
— Reformed Seminary (@ReformTheoSem) July 8, 2021
This rapid shift in American religion was driven primarily by evangelicals becoming more prominent in American culture. The rise of televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson coincided with the Religious Right beginning to assert itself in electoral politics. Because the nones were relatively small at this point, there’s ample reason to believe that significant numbers of mainline Protestants became evangelicals through the 1980s.
By the late 1980s, evangelicals had become 25–27 percent of the population, and the mainline population was stuck around 20 percent. In 1993, evangelicals hit their peak in the data at just under 30 percent and have since gone into a slow and steady decline over time.
Between 2000 and 2018, the decline among evangelicals has been relatively modest—just about two percentage points. The mainline also declined three times as fast during this same time period, dropping from 16 percent in 2000 to just over 10 percent in 2018.
When you look at where both traditions started in 1972, evangelicals are slightly up, while the mainline is significantly smaller.
New @CTmagazine from me.
For every 3 mainliners who become evangelicals, there are 2 evangelicals who became mainline.
Evangelicals have relied on that to buoy their numbers for decades. But, as the mainline declines, that won't work going forward. https://t.co/eaBuI8dBuu
— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) July 13, 2021
Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant Argula von Grumbach a spirit of wisdom and power to love thy Word and to boldly draw others unto its truth: Pour out that same spirit upon us, so that we, knowing and loving thy Holy Word, may be unashamed of Christ and may not sin against the Holy Spirit that is within us, Amen.
The Episcopal Church also commemorates Argula von Grumbach, Scholar & Church Reformer, c.1554 https://t.co/BMcyTAJKVO
The 1st known Protestant woman writer, she is best known for her letter to the University of Ingolstadt's faculty challenging the arrest of a Lutheran student pic.twitter.com/cIUkX9TwYn
— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) July 14, 2020
O Lord Christ, by whose single death upon the cross the members of thy body also die to servitude and sin: Grant us so to crucify the old man, that the new may daily rise with thee in the immortal power of thy free Spirit, who liveth and reigneth with the Father and thee, one God, world without end.
Breathtakingly Beautiful Sunrise Sails Just Off The New Jersey Coast….⛵️🌅😍 pic.twitter.com/xEwTR7ZDme
— Gary (@DJGARYNH) July 13, 2021
But for thee, O Lord, do I wait;
it is thou, O Lord my God, who wilt answer….
Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!
—-Psalm 38:15; 21-22
King David playing the harp
From the Westminster Psalter, c. 1200
Royal MS 2 A XXII, f. 14vhttps://t.co/PzDVFC8JE1 pic.twitter.com/eP0qfpftUf
— Medieval Manuscripts (@BLMedieval) July 13, 2021
Many of the people present were local residents, but others had travelled from across Greater Manchester and even from Merseyside to show solidarity with the footballer and campaigner for free school meals.
Claire Conway, 40, had travelled from Bolton with her two sons, aged three and nine, to leave flags at the mural. Her eldest in particular hugely looks up to Rashford and the footballer has proven a fantastic role model.
“He has fed families, he’s looked after the community, and because he missed the penalty he doesn’t deserve — well, nobody deserves – any sort of racism,” Conway said. “What they did to this I thought was absolutely disgusting.”
Gesturing to the groups of people clustered around her, as children and adults alike pinned notes to the wall, she added: “This is Manchester – this is what Manchester does. We come together like this because there is no place for [racism] anywhere.”
Read it all (subscription).
Marcus Rashford’s mural has been restored — with more than a few additions https://t.co/lHog3v2Pkc via @thetimes
— Nino Brodin (@Orgetorix) July 13, 2021
Eventually, word of the girls’ indiscipline reached Malam Ahmed. The girls were singing, he learned, and were hiding a Bible. He was furious. His guards arrived, a mass of men descending on them all at once, shouting orders and demanding to search the area. The girls stood to the side while the men rifled through the piled-up clothes and kitchen utensils they kept under a tree. The militants confiscated medicine, mainly basic painkillers the girls had been hiding. They found a cellphone. But the girls had already buried their diaries and a Bible, marking the spot with a stone.
“We were no longer afraid,” Naomi told us.
It wasn’t until May 2017 that she and 81 of her classmates were ordered to march to the side of a dirt road, where a row of white Red Cross Toyota Land Cruisers were parked. One after the next, the young women were invited to cross the road by a lawyer, who had been working with the Swiss Foreign Affairs ministry to help negotiate their release. The cars rumbled off, and as the schoolmates cracked open juice boxes, the men who’d held them hostage for three years became small figures on the horizon. The journey had barely begun when the passengers broke into a song from Chibok, loud enough that the entire convoy could hear and join in. Their voices arched and lingered over the a in happy, reaching for a note at the top of the melody.
Today is a happy day!
Everybody shake your body, thank God! Today is a happy day.
Years later, Naomi began to recount these anecdotes to us, recalling a story of courage in the face of horrors that sounded fantastical in their depravity. Nevertheless, after many hours of interviews with the young women held in captivity, it became clear that her account often understated the schoolgirls’ bravery. Naomi and her friends had no reason to believe they would survive their ordeal and every expectation that each challenge to their captors’ worldview would result in physical and mental punishment. They stuck to their principles all the same, staging a rebellion that signaled their determination to persevere.
“We stood our ground,” as Naomi later told us.
Whispered Prayers, Hidden Bibles, Secretly Scribbled Verses: Inside the Resilient Faith of the #BringBackOurGirls Hostages https://t.co/pXdUesN0HX via @CTMagazine
— Stanton Winder (@WinderStanton) July 13, 2021
After a wide ranging series of conversations involving many Synod members, representatives of just about every constituency that makes up the complex and varied ecology of the Church of England, and many voices that do not always find themselves invited to the decision-making table, we were led to a simple answer: to be a more Christ centred church.
I don’t think we would have arrived at such a simple statement were it not for the experience of Covid. The restrictions and isolations we have lived with have been hard. Our world is suffering. But stripped of the familiar comforts of worship and common life we have discovered a new and clear vision of Christ, the one who stands at the centre of our faith, the one in whom we have access to God. This is ludicrously obvious. It is hardly a surprise to say that our life is centred in Christ. It is unceasingly profound. The new life we have in Christ is received in one ‘gigantic gulp of grace’, as St. Cyprian put it. It is also a never ending story. St John’s Gospel ends with the declaration that if everything about Jesus was written down then “the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21. 25)
St John also tells us that we are called to beloved discipleship, ‘dwelling close to the Father’s heart’; and courageous discipleship: ‘As the Father sent me, so now I send you’. As we recover and emerge from Covid, we believe that God is asking us to become a church of missionary disciples; a younger and more diverse church that looks like the communities it serves; a safe church and a church that is a place of welcome for everyone; a mixed ecology church where we reach and serve our nation in many different ways.
At the centre of this, and as the means whereby we will serve and reach our nation, is a parish system revitalised for mission. And I’m dismayed that anyone would think this work – work, by the way, that is still a work in progress – is aiming at anything else.
In St John’s gospel he tells us that we are called to beloved discipleship, ‘dwelling close to the Father’s heart’; and courageous discipleship: ‘As the Father sent me, so now I send you’. #synodhttps://t.co/PJo4rOS5AQ
— Stephen Cottrell (@CottrellStephen) July 12, 2021
The new HBO series Mare of Easttown, created by Brad Ingelsby and directed by Craig Zobel, is a riveting crime drama that reveals both the darkness and light residing in the soul of America these days. The show is reminiscent of the superb British series Broadchurch, and it focuses on the murder of a poor teenage mother and the earlier disappearance of two young prostitutes.
Set and filmed in Delaware County outside of Philadelphia, Mare of Easttown is disturbing and inspiring. The actors’ eastern Pennsylvania accents are impeccable, and I could just about feel a cup of Wawa coffee in my hand. The multiple plotlines related to opioid addiction represent the demonic gloom that has settled over countless communities in the so-called “rust belt” and Appalachia. The biggest point of pride in Easttown is the memory of a high school state basketball championship; and Mare Sheehan, played by Kate Winslet, is the forty-something divorced grandmother who is still famous for hitting the winning shot all those years ago.
As a small-town police detective, Mare embodies the pain of the people she cannot help but love. With the nature of policing under intense scrutiny these days, Mare is deeply compassionate about the needs of her neighbors (when we meet Mare, she is helping a junkie get to a church shelter, instead of taking him to jail), and she is subject to a high degree of accountability from them, precisely because they know and love her too. At the same time, Mare faces a public relations crusade led by an old friend, whose missing daughter Mare has not yet succeeded in finding. It is an excellent depiction of the Catholic social teaching of subsidiarity: there is no nameless, faceless force here, but rather justice tempered with mercy at the local level. It is messy, but no one in Easttown seems to want it any other way.
My thoughts on Mare of Easttown. https://t.co/reLfiqGHXX
— Andrew Petiprin (@AndrewPetiprin) June 25, 2021