Are humans naturally good given the right circumstances? Or are we flawed and in need of threats and guidelines to keep us on the straight and narrow? The split is a legacy of radical ideas stretching back to the revolutionary 18th century.

Perhaps the most famous proponent of intrinsic human goodness is Rousseau, who claimed in Emile (1762) that children are born virtuous. As Rousseau sees it, we only need freedom, love and the right environment to spontaneously come to an understanding of what’s right.

When Emile was first published, it stood in stark challenge to the then-dominant view, emerging from the Christian tradition, that humans are tainted by ‘original sin’. From this vantage point, we’re naturally flawed, and must always struggle against our less virtuous instincts. Rousseau’s claim so appalled adherents of this then-dominant view that copies of his book were burned in the street.

Today, though, the boot is on the other foot. The high-status view among contemporary elites is unmistakeably Team Rousseau.

Read it all.

Why anarchy has come to America @UnHerd https://t.co/JU4H1Ncxip Public order has been sacrificed on the altar of empathy pic.twitter.com/FhuvyN7Zjx

— Faenerator (@Faenerator) November 24, 2021

CARNAÚBA DOS DANTAS, Brazil — The land has sustained the Dantas family for more than 150 years, bearing fields of cotton, beanstalks up to a grown man’s hip and, when it rained enough, a river that led to a waterfall.

But on a recent day, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees, the river had run dry, the crops would not grow and the family’s 30 remaining cattle were quickly consuming the last pool of water.

“Fifty years from now, there won’t be a soul living here,” said Inácio Batista Dantas, 80, balanced in a frayed hammock. “I tell my grandchildren that things are going to get very difficult.”

His granddaughter, Hellena, 16, listened in — and pushed back. She grew up here. “I plan to work this land,” she said.

Read it all.

“Fifty years from now, there won’t be a soul living here.”

Much of Brazil’s northeast is effectively turning into a desert. Climate change is one culprit, but residents have also made short-term decisions to get by that have had long-term consequences. https://t.co/Wl09K4yNS5

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 3, 2021

Going beyond the accumulating scientific evidence for a spiritual dimension, there are the continuing debates concerning the origin of the universe and its fine tuning for life, and the origin and diversity of life on earth. In all of these areas, the hypothesis of an intelligent designer is equally or more plausible than the purely materialistic explanations that many assume are the only permissible theories.

So, it is my opinion that one of the few ways in which the seemingly unstoppable tide of secularisation might be reversed is by gradually, but relentlessly, countering the materialist assumptions that predominate in society with rigorous, data-based evidence that we are the spiritual children of a loving God.

Such a strategy is clearly playing the long game, which is why I estimate that it will take several generations. This may seem frustratingly slow on a human scale; but God has all the time in the world.

Read it all (registration).

A materialist world-view permeates society — but will its influence last, asks Ian Toddhttps://t.co/HsfFvHWN0z

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 3, 2021

Loving God, who didst call Francis Xavier to lead many in India and Japan to know Jesus Christ as their Redeemer: Bring us to the new life of glory promised to all who follow in the Way; through the same Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

#FrancisXavier is remembered today. His Jesuit vocation saw him preaching the gospel overseas all over the East Indies, evangelising and establishing churches including Japan. He died in 1552. We give thanks for all who spread the good news of the gospel in our world. pic.twitter.com/hbmpz7snn8

— Parish of Moseley (@ParishofMoseley) December 3, 2021

O Wisdom, that camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to another, firmly and gently ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of understanding.

O Adonai, Captain of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush, and gavest him the law on Sinai: Come and deliver us with thine outstretched arm.

O Root of Jesse, who standest for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall shut their mouths, to whom the nations shall seek: Come and deliver us and tarry not.

O Key of David, Sceptre of the house of Israel, who openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and no man openeth: Come and bring forth out of the prison-house him that is bound.

O Day-spring from on high, Brightness of Eternal Light, and Sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

O King of nations, thou for whom they long, the Cornerstone that makest both one: Come and save thy creatures whom thou didst fashion from the dust of the earth.

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

(For those interested in more about this, please read further there).

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 3
‘Snowy Lane’#RonaldLampitt pic.twitter.com/5ifUljrDGH

— Helen Day (@LBFlyawayhome) December 3, 2021

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved….Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.

–Psalm 16:7-8;11

Baby fox kisses = mood improved📈

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware provides excellent habitat for a terrific variety of animals. The grasslands and tidal salt marshes are home to eagles, hawks, ducks, geese, and litters of cute baby foxes.

Pic by Maria Khvan pic.twitter.com/956gP0YArM

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) December 3, 2021

This time, a lot of local public health departments around the country are working hard to get the message right, says Adriane Casalotti of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “We have seen local health departments being out there, trying to explain to folks what we do know, but also what we don’t know — and what the timeframe is, and what the process is for learning more.”

One official who’s getting out there is Dr. Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis, a specialist in infectious diseases and the director of health for the city of St. Louis.

“The message is: There’s no need to panic,” she says. “We still need to learn, we still need to wait for science to do its thing. But in the meantime, we have tools available to keep ourselves and our community safe. We have safe and effective vaccines — so go out and get one — we know that masking works, we know that social distancing works, and we know that hand-washing works.”

In addition to the “don’t panic, do this instead” message, Vish Viswanath, professor of health communication at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health says Hlatshwayo Davis is also signaling to the community that she’s engaged and plans to keep them updated as scientists learn more about the new variant. He says her approach is “exactly what we need.”

“That sense of competence and action — ‘we are watching it, we are on top of it, we’ll work with you’ — it won’t eliminate, but it will abate many concerns,” he says.

Read it all.

"We still need to learn, we still need to wait for science to do its thing,” @MatiH_ID tells @NPR. “But in the meantime, we have tools available to keep ourselves and our community safe.” https://t.co/WWaKj5FYaa

— Brian Munoz (@brianmmunoz) December 2, 2021

The Archbishop awarded Canon Rees a Lambeth Doctorate of Civil Law last night in recognition for his erudition and distinguished service as Provincial Registrar. The award was given during a service of Evening Prayer at Lambeth Palace, in the company of Canon Rees’s family, friends and former colleagues.

For over 20 years, Canon Rees held the offices of Registrar of the Diocese of Oxford, Registrar of the Province of Canterbury and Legal Adviser to the Anglican Consultative Council. He was a founder member, treasurer and, latterly, chairman of the Ecclesiastical Law Society. The Anglican Communion has benefited from his wisdom and knowledge through, amongst other things, the Windsor Report in 2004, and his role as Convenor of the Legal Advisors’ Network which published Principles of Canon Law Applicable to the Churches of the Anglican Communion for the Lambeth Conference in 2008.

Canon Rees has advised upon, assisted and enabled the ministry of the church at every level from individuals to parishes and dioceses, national churches and international bodies, assisting the Church in the fulfilment of the call to preach the gospel in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4. 2). Throughout this, as an ordained priest he has continued to minister in his local parish.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury @JustinWelby now leads thanks to Canon John Rees, who is departing as Provincial Registrar. pic.twitter.com/lc1taKf2GH

— General Synod (@synod) April 24, 2021

The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) has published material intended to initiate conversations about “issues of culture, power and abuse” within its constituency.

The materials, published on Wednesday, are “designed to help Evangelical churches review, repent and reshape their cultures on the back of the recent Thirtyone:eight independent reviews into two prominent Evangelical churches and their leaders”, a press release says.

The reviews to which it refers are those of Emmanuel Proprietary Chapel, Ridgway, in Wimbledon and the Revd Jonathan Fletcher (News, 26 March), and the Crowded House, a non-denominational Evangelical church in Sheffield, at which “some instances of emotional and/or psychological abuse took place as a result of persistent coercive and controlling behaviour”.

The resources include an introductory film and a “liturgy of lament” for churches to use. There is also a booklet, Church Cultures Review Questions, which contains more than 100 questions for churches.

Read it all.

The resources include an introductory film and a “liturgy of lament” for churches to use. There is also a booklet, Church Cultures Review Questions, which contains more than 100 questions for churches.https://t.co/geCD1RMfdj

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 2, 2021

As recently as last week, many public health experts were fiercely opposed to the Biden administration’s campaign to roll out booster shots of the coronavirus vaccines to all American adults. There was little scientific evidence to support extra doses for most people, the researchers said.

The Omicron variant has changed all that.

Scientists do not yet know with any certainty whether the virus is easier to spread or less vulnerable to the body’s immune response. But with dozens of new mutations, the variant seems likely to evade the protection from vaccines to some significant degree.

Booster shots clearly raise antibody levels, strengthening the body’s defenses against infection, and may help offset whatever advantages Omicron has gained through evolution.

Many of the experts who were opposed to boosters now believe that the shots may offer the best defense against the new variant. The extra doses may slow the spread, at least, buying time for vaccine makers to develop an Omicron-specific formulation, if needed.

Read it all.

I’ve been consistent: Since Jan-Feb I’ve said the mRNA was a 3-dose vaccine. When you gave those first two doses just 3-4 weeks apart, you practically ensured immunity would wane and require a booster. That’s true of most vaccines we administer. https://t.co/woCCJK6nfm

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) December 2, 2021

Listen to it all (just under 6 minutes).

Morning encouragement–the 'My Unsung Hero' podcast on the lasting impact one #teacher can make https://t.co/ilqarIxzht #heroes #education #impact #perspective #children #school only 5 minutes it is well worth your time #arkansas #history

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 2, 2021

(Hat tip: EH)

O God, who in thy providence didst call Channing Moore Williams to the ministry of this church and gave him the gifts and the perseverance to preach the Gospel in new lands: Inspire us, by his example and prayers, to commit our talents to thy service, confident that thou dost uphold those whom thou dost call; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Channing Moore Williams, Bishop and Missionary, 1910 https://t.co/LpR4FZQSK6

Bishop Williams was the 1st Bishop of the Nippon Sei-Ko-Kai (Anglican-Episcopal Church of Japan)

Image: Statue at Rikkyo University, Tokyo. Photo: DT Johnson pic.twitter.com/qOAl0WXnFd

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) December 2, 2021

Grant, O Lord, that we who once again prepare for the commemoration of the coming of thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, may so direct our hearts to the fulfillment of thy law, that he may now accept our hosannas, and in the life to come receive us in the heavenly Sion; where with thee and the Holy Ghost he liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end.

It warms the heart and soul watching sunrise. I had to wait a while today for the sun to clear the cloud. pic.twitter.com/UXtCL5a2tP

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) December 2, 2021

“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,”
says the Lord.

“And I also withheld the rain from you
when there were yet three months to the harvest;
I would send rain upon one city,
and send no rain upon another city;
one field would be rained upon,
and the field on which it did not rain withered;
so two or three cities wandered to one city
to drink water, and were not satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,”
says the Lord.

“I smote you with blight and mildew;
I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards;
your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured;
yet you did not return to me,”
says the Lord.

“I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
I slew your young men with the sword;
I carried away your horses;
and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;
yet you did not return to me,”
says the Lord.

“I overthrew some of you,
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor′rah,
and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning;
yet you did not return to me,”
says the Lord.

“Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

For lo, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind,
and declares to man what is his thought;
who makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!

–Amos 4:6-13

Welcome to December! A gorgeous sunrise over Downtown Charleston to get us started! @stormhour #chswx pic.twitter.com/YYrvVE2Sru

— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) December 1, 2021

The spike in staff departures known as the Great Resignation is centred on America: a record 3% of the workforce there quit their jobs in September. But employees in other places are also footloose. Resignations explain why job-to-job moves in Britain reached a record high in the third quarter of this year.

Some of the churn is transitory. It was hard to act on pent-up job dissatisfaction while economies were in free fall, so there is a post-pandemic backlog of job switches to clear. And more quitting now is not the same as sustained job-hopping later. As Melissa Swift of Mercer, a consultancy, notes, white-collar workers in search of higher purpose will choose a new employer carefully and stay longer.

But there is also reason to believe that higher rates of churn are here to stay. The prevalence of remote working means that more roles are plausible options for more jobseekers. And the pandemic has driven home the precariousness of life at the bottom of the income ladder. Resignation rates are highest in industries, like hospitality, that are full of low-wage workers who have lots of potentially risky face-to-face contact with colleagues and customers.

Read it all (requires registration).

For white-collar types the split between office and home is what counts. For blue-collar workers, single parents especially, it’s time management https://t.co/xT3EzrlqPa

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) November 27, 2021

Asking a question in the House of Lords, Bishop Paul Butler said the omicron variant showed that the virus “knows no national boundaries.”

He said: “In the light of the new omicron variant that has dominated the news over the weekend, my colleague Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town urged those of us in rich countries to do better at narrowing inequality of vaccination rates, which are 7% in Africa and 70% in Europe.

“We must acknowledge that this virus knows no national boundaries and will spread, mutate and return to us in the way that we are seeing, so we need a global approach, not simply a bilateral approach.

Read it all.

‘Virus knows no national boundaries’ – Bishop calls for vaccine equity https://t.co/oW6MZUzre1

— Heartsong Live (@heartsonglive1) November 30, 2021

It has been announced that the Reverend Lynne Cullens will be the next Bishop of Barking, succeeding the Right Reverend Peter Hill, who retired earlier this year.

Lynne is currently Rector of Stockport and Brinnington in the Diocese of Chester, where she has served since July 2019. She is also a trustee and the Chair of the National Estate Churches Network.

Speaking about her appointment in a message to churches in the Barking Area, Lynne said:

It has been the most delightful and humbling surprise to have been called to this role and to Chelmsford Diocese. I am very much looking forward to joining you and to meeting with, and learning from, people, communities and partners across the Barking area.

It will be a privilege to serve God alongside you and to support Bishop Guli as she leads our continuing discernment of his will for our diocese and his Church”.

Read it all.

The Revd Lynne Cullens – @LynneCullens has this morning been announced as the next Bishop of Barking.
Find our more here – https://t.co/8W3kKrtFYv
Share your own welcome message with Lynne using the hashtag #NextBishopOfBarking pic.twitter.com/NBifmle5Zp

— Chelmsford Diocese (@chelmsdio) November 30, 2021

We are on the cusp of the fastest, deepest, most consequential transformation of human civilization in history, a transformation every bit as significant as the move from foraging to cities and agriculture 10,000 years ago.

During the 2020s, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors that underpin the global economy, and with them every major industry in the world today. The knock-on effects for society will be as profound as the extraordinary possibilities that emerge.

In information, energy, food, transportation, and materials, costs will fall by 10x or more, while production processes an order of magnitude (10x) more efficient will use 90% fewer natural resources with 10x-100x less waste. The prevailing production system will shift away from a model of centralized extraction and the breakdown of scarce resources that requires vast physical scale and reach, to a model of localized creation from limitless, ubiquitous building blocks – a world built not on coal, oil, steel, livestock, and concrete but on photons, electrons, DNA, molecules and (q)bits. Product design and development will be performed collaboratively over information networks while physical production and distribution will be fulfilled locally. As a result, geographic advantage will be eliminated as every city or region becomes self-sufficient. This new creation-based production system, which will be built on technologies we are already using today, will be far more equitable, robust, and resilient than any we have ever seen. We have the opportunity to move from a world of extraction to one of creation, a world of scarcity to one of plenitude, a world of inequity and predatory competition to one of shared prosperity and collaboration.

This is not, then, another Industrial Revolution, but a far more fundamental shift. This is the beginning of the third age of humankind – the Age of Freedom.

Read it all.

Humanity is at a crossroads. Decisions we make today will determine whether we capture the unprecedented possibilities emerging from technology convergence that either leads to an #AgeOfFreedom, or a collapse into a new ‘Dark Age’. #SocietalDisruption https://t.co/95HGEax4OQ pic.twitter.com/0bcnn0yQ7Z

— RethinkX (@rethink_x) June 24, 2020

Goldman Sachs has gamed four omicron outcomes: “severe downside”, “downside”, “false alarm”, and a surprise “upside”. These scenarios have starkly different implications for asset prices and macroeconomic policy over the next year. Get it wrong at your cost.

You can already see this tension playing out in wild moves on global bourses, or in oil prices, with each snippet of fresh information.

Markets have taken a fresh beating this morning on warnings from Moderna that it is “not going to be good” for the existing vaccines. But if the disease is indeed milder, a slippage in antibody protection levels may not matter, and we still have T-cell memory as the next line of defence.

For the sake of argument – as a Gedankenexperiment – I assume that the benign picture from South Africa holds up over the winter and that we will land at the optimistic end of the Goldman spectrum.

Read it all.

"The dam will break across the world rapidly if omicron proves to be as mild as it looks and wins the transmission contest against delta," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

"The urge for normality will overcome all else" https://t.co/vgXEIw6CL8

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 30, 2021

Lord God, make us so reflect thy perfect love; that, with thy deacon Nicholas Ferrar and his household, we may rule ourselves according to thy Word, and serve thee with our whole heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Nicholas Ferrar founded the community at Little Gidding, Cambridgeshire in 1626 (puritans accused it of being a protestant convent) and restored the church there. He had George Herbert's poems published, and Little Gidding itself is a theme of one of TS Eliot's Four Quartets. pic.twitter.com/3ccOBeXFzv

— Simon Knott (@last_of_england) December 1, 2021

O Almighty Father, fountain of light and salvation, we adore thine infinite goodness in sending thy only begotten Son into the world that, believing in him, we may not perish but have everlasting life; and we pray thee that, through the grace of his first advent to save the world, we may be made ready to meet him at his second advent to judge the world; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Life is better with flowers 🍃 pic.twitter.com/T2ybyRzV5a

— Daisy (@daisysdays1) November 30, 2021

This is now the second letter that I have written to you, beloved, and in both of them I have aroused your sincere mind by way of reminder; that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own passions and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.

–2 Peter 3:1-10

Welcome December ❤️
Our last month of the year, I am wishing joy and tranquility 🙏🏻🤗
Remember to spend time in nature. #December1st #welcomedecember #Robin pic.twitter.com/7LM77lPiBO

— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼‍♀️ (@VeronicaJoPo) December 1, 2021

Repairs are under way at a cathedral after part of its roof was damaged during Storm Arwen.

On Friday, a piece of masonry fell from a tower at Worcester Cathedral and pierced the north choir aisle roof.

A team of experts is conducting investigations and weather-proofing the damaged area, the cathedral said.

Dean of the cathedral, the Very Reverend Peter Atkinson, said the repairs to the medieval building would require “a great deal of care”.

Read it all.

Latest on the repair work @WorcCathedral #StormArwen https://t.co/nVzcf4C6gY

— BBC Hereford & Worcester (@bbchw) November 30, 2021

The pandemic has unleashed a historic burst in entrepreneurship and self-employment. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are striking out on their own as consultants, retailers and small-business owners.

The move helps explain the ongoing shake-up in the world of work, with more people looking for flexibility, anxious about covid exposure, upset about vaccine mandates or simply disenchanted with pre-pandemic office life. It is also aggravating labor shortages in some industries and adding pressure on companies to revamp their employment policies.

The number of unincorporated self-employed workers has risen by 500,000 since the start of the pandemic, Labor Department data show, to 9.44 million. That is the highest total since the financial-crisis year 2008, except for this summer. The total amounts to an increase of 6% in the self-employed, while the overall U.S. employment total remains nearly 3% lower than before the pandemic.

Entrepreneurs applied for federal tax-identification numbers to register 4.54 million new businesses from January through October this year, up 56% from the same period of 2019, Census Bureau data show. That was the largest number on records that date back to 2004. Two-thirds were for businesses that aren’t expected to hire employees.

Read it all.

“Take this job and…” Workers in droves are choosing to become self-employed. https://t.co/CRps3v1CsD via @WSJ

— Stanton Winder (@WinderStanton) November 29, 2021

• Some of England’s biggest landowners, who collectively own and manage around 30 percent of England’s land, sign pact to tackle climate change
• Signatories include farmers, charities and private landowners, vow to work together alongside nature to use land effectively
• Commitment made to coincide with outcomes of COP26 to show what can be done at home to tackle climate change
• Joint principles include backing nature to tackle the climate crisis, reducing carbon and adapt to changing circumstances

Read it all.

Some of the nation’s largest landowners make unprecedented pact to jointly tackle the climate and nature crises – @nationaltrust https://t.co/1zwLK4SJdm
Signatories include: @Natures_Voice @NAAONB @natparksengland @WildlifeTrusts @WoodlandTrust pic.twitter.com/5MZWlyjrn3

— CJS News (@CountrysideNews) November 29, 2021

When I meet Rowan Williams at the Southbank Centre in late October, there is much going on. The Church of England, of which he was once Archbishop of Canterbury, stands accused of trying to close churches to save cash; a famous bishop has converted to Rome; and Williams is waiting for his daughter to give birth (the boy, his first grandchild, will arrive a few days later).

Although he’s been lampooned for being wishy-washy, I find Williams’s language to be economical and exact, and though he is thoroughly loyal to his successors in the clerical hierarchy, buried beneath his metaphors is a cutting critique of where we’re at. “There was a loss of nerve in the 1960s,” he says of Anglicanism. “Like St Peter walking on the water”, the Church seemed to “look down at the wrong moment” and lose its footing.

Now, Williams believes, we are seeing the legacy of that “pervasive and paralysing anxiety about the role of the Church in society”. Amid “a general cultural tide flowing away” from Christianity, we have to ask: what if the Church “is no longer a given….”?

Information has become abundant, he says, yet “the process of acquiring that information” – ie scrolling through one’s phone – “has disabled us intellectually… We are increasingly forgetting how to learn. We assume that knowledge can be distilled and communicated and transferred just like that… a tick box approach which is found in clergy training.” What knowledge we inherit, we take for granted, yet “the absolutism of some modern social morality” – the idea that right and wrong are obvious – “did not drop from heaven. We learnt to see things this way.”

Read it all (subscription).

Rowan Williams believes we are seeing the legacy of that “pervasive and paralysing anxiety about the role of the Church in society”

Read the full interview 👇 https://t.co/eVhfPuzq0u

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 28, 2021

On Disney+, which launched in Hong Kong on Nov. 16, episodes 11 and 13 of season 16 are viewable in the Chinese territory, but not episode 12, which first aired in 2005. That episode was available over the weekend in Singapore, where Disney+ launched earlier this year.

“This is the first notable time an American streaming giant has censored content in Hong Kong,” said Kenny Ng, an associate professor specializing in film censorship at Hong Kong Baptist University.

“Basically, the whole story is for streaming companies to be more tailored to a Chinese audience and to not offend the Chinese government,” he added. “This is likely to continue in the future with more companies with financial interests in China.”

Read it all (subscription).

Disney+ omits an episode of “The Simpsons” in Hong Kong that mentions the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, in what appears to be one of the first cases of a major U.S. streaming giant censoring content in the city https://t.co/3bqWnPtR3m

— Bloomberg (@business) November 29, 2021

Almighty God, who didst give such grace to thine apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of thy Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give unto us, who are called by thy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today is St Andrew's Day. Saint Andrew was a fisherman and younger brother of Saint Peter. When they were called to serve Jesus, the Savior of the world said he would make them "fishers of men". https://t.co/OLyRzWTyA2 pic.twitter.com/vAK8c8uMoV

— Trivia Encyclopedia (@edpearce080759) November 30, 2021

Keep us, O Lord, while we tarry on this earth, in a serious seeking after thee, and in an affectionate walking with thee, every day of our lives; that when thou comest, we may be found not hiding our talent, nor serving the flesh, nor yet asleep with our lamp unfurnished, but waiting and longing for our Lord, our glorious God for ever and ever.

It really was special this morning in Shrewsbury. pic.twitter.com/leHOOPeCMf

— Liam Ball (@Liam_Ball92) November 29, 2021

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these things, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to arouse you by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. And I will see to it that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

–2 Peter 1:12-21

Sometimes a beautiful image at sunrise is all we need to get the week started off right. Happy #MotivationMonday!

Photo courtesy of C. Spencer pic.twitter.com/F3sGMVLTf1

— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) November 29, 2021