"England are in a final — a final! — and these are the strangest, rarest and most beautiful of words to write. Can 55 years of hurt really be about to end?" @henrywinter #ENGDEN https://t.co/KL8Yh0A9nA
— The Times (@thetimes) July 7, 2021
Daily Archives: July 7, 2021
Congratulations to England for making the Euro2020 final
(CC) Daniel Schultz–What does it mean to believe in Jesus in the way John wants?
“Trust me!” Jesus says, and the more he says it, the less the crowd is inclined to go along.
John’s idea of what it means to believe is far different from ours in our scientific, post-Enlightenment world, of course. It’s not assent to an intellectual proposition the apostle is after, it’s that his readers come to better know Jesus, the bread of heaven. The relational aspect finally saves the story from itself. Even as the author fumes about the crowd’s blindness, his main character invites them into relationship. Jesus, ever the teacher, wants to see the light in their eyes as the world opens up before them. He knows there’s no margin in making them feel stupid.
The leader of an immunization advocacy group recently told me it’s well known in that world that you simply cannot argue someone into taking the necessary steps for public health. They may listen to the logic and consider the evidence, but if they’re skeptical, it all goes in one ear and out the other. The only thing to do, in her words, is to offer them “positive feelings strong enough to outweigh the bad.”
The thing to do, then, is to show people “that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” by listening to them, taking them seriously, and building a relationship. In encouraging vaccination, avoid the temptation to scoff at plain ignorance and recalcitrance. In reading John, stop demanding that people think the same way we do. It doesn’t always work—people can be pretty stubborn, after all—but when it does, it brings the joy of watching someone realize for the first time how wonderful and strange life is in the light of God’s love. Why would you want to miss out on that fun?
“The thing to do is to show people ‘that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world’ by listening to them, taking them seriously, and building a relationship.” — @pastordan #lectionaryhttps://t.co/9iiMbYwgQG
— theChristianCentury (@ChristianCent) July 6, 2021
(Archbp Cranmer blog) ‘Key limiting factors’: the end of stipendiary parish ministry
Which is absolutely laudable: a church without a mission is just a monument in memory of the Messiah. And a parish-based innovation which is overseen by qualified parish clergy is welcome if it leads people to Christ. But church leaders who have not submitted to a “long, costly college-based training” will have little theology and poor (or no) formation. You end up with a Wesleyan model of church (conveniently forgetting that the Wesleys were steeped in theology and had a profound understanding of Anglican orthodoxy), with all the inherent dangers of error and heresy being lay-preached. Reading Against Heresies: On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis and writing tedious 5,000-word essays on the definition of ‘Applied Theology’ is what helps to qualify you to teach, preach and minister effectively. Some eager disciples yearn to get out into the community and ‘do stuff’, but that stuff is far better done when it is led by people whose skills have been honed, mettle tested, and vocation discerned.
And who are all these lay leaders waiting to be ‘released’? Are they all wealthy or self-employed with a lot of spare time on their hands and the ability to labour for nothing, like parliamentary candidates for the Conservative Party?
Or perhaps there are no lay leaders waiting and yearning to be ‘released’ – and certainly nothing like the army necessary to birth and nurture 10,000 church plants.
Isn’t it a curious vision for renewing and reinvigorating the Church of England that the strategy is apparently to inculcate a new generation with the theology of the Free Church: you don’t need knowledgeable priests, you don’t need beautiful buildings, and you don’t need rigorous qualifications in theology: these are key limiting factors to mission. All you need is a passion for Christ and the ability to lead a Bible study. The rest is otiose.
Now, when will someone write a paper on the key limiting factors in the House and College of Bishops?
For what need the Church of Key Limiting Factors when the Church of Release and Liberation is just down the road? What need an expensively-formed priest in cassock and stole when there’s a free RE teacher in trackie bottoms and trainers just down the road?https://t.co/WR8w8nbP5Y
— Archbishop Cranmer: key limiting factor since 1520 (@His_Grace) July 3, 2021
(Church Times) Archbishop of Canterbury endorses urgent plan for church-planting
THE Church needs to plant churches to “let Jesus out”, the Archbishop of Canterbury told a conference last week.
MultiplyX 2021, hosted online by the Gregory Centre for Church Multiplication, secured an endorsement for an urgent programme of church-planting from both Archbishop Welby and the Archbishop of York, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, who emphasised the historical precedent for the work.
“Every church we ever go to has been planted at some point or another,” Archbishop Welby said. “In every generation, if we are going to make a difference, we have to get the church out. And we have to get out of the church as it is normally seen. . . To quote Pope Francis, we have locked Jesus into the church and we need to open the church and let him out.” New churches “go out because there is no choice, because there is no one coming in”.
He diagnosed a need for culture change. “It’s a new discipline for quite a lot of people, Anglicans, that we are meant to witness. That we are not meant to leave Jesus inside the church when we go out, and pick him up again when we come back in the following Sunday but to go with him. . .”
Good write up of multiplyx in the @ChurchTimes , encouraging Christians of every tradition to participate in planting & pioneering, to remember Christ's work in the world calling us to be the Church in the present for the future @MadsDavies @stmellitus https://t.co/fhEHklwgqt
— Fr Simon Cuff (@frsimoncuff) July 2, 2021
(AP) US left Afghan airfield at night, didn’t tell new commander
The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.
Afghanistan’s army showed off the sprawling air base Monday, providing a rare first glimpse of what had been the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on America.
The U.S. announced Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.
“We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram … and finally by seven o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram’s new commander said.
What the heck is the US doing 🤦🏻♂️
“The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, https://t.co/mssSQFGqsw— Alireza Nader علیرضا نادر (@AlirezaNader) July 6, 2021
(NYT Op-ed) Ross Douthat–The Excesses of Antiracist Education
What’s really inflaming today’s fights, though, is that the structural-racist diagnosis isn’t being offered on its own. Instead it’s yoked to two sweeping theories about how to fight the problem it describes.
First, there is a novel theory of moral education, according to which the best way to deal with systemic inequality is to confront its white beneficiaries with their privileges and encourage them to wrestle with their sins.
Second, there is a Manichaean vision of public policy, in which all policymaking is either racist or antiracist, all racial disparities are the result of racism — and the measurement of any outcome short of perfect “equity” may be a form of structural racism itself.
The first idea is associated with Robin DiAngelo, the second with Ibram X. Kendi, and they converge in places like the work of Tema Okun, whose presentations train educators to see “white-supremacy culture” at work in traditional measures of academic attainment.
The impulses these ideas encourage take different forms in different institutions, but they usually circle around to similar goals…..
My Sunday column (tweeted belatedly): The Excesses of Antiracist Educationhttps://t.co/DRVFgc3tWA
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) July 6, 2021
Posted in Anthropology, Children, Education, Ethics / Moral Theology, History, Philosophy, Race/Race Relations
A Prayer to begin the Day from Frank Colquhoun
Grant, O blessed Lord, that thy Church in this our day may hear anew thy call to launch out into the deep in the service of thy glorious gospel; that souls for whom thou hast died may be won for thee, to the increase of thy kingdom and the glory of thy holy name.
Good Wednesday morning! Caught a glimpse of this sunrise over the Harbor today ☀️ #downtown #baltimore @wjz pic.twitter.com/Gc5klLFXsH
— Rachel Menitoff (@RachelMenitoff) July 7, 2021
Posted in Spirituality/Prayer
From the Morning Scripture Readings
But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
–1 Samuel 16:7
Il sorgere del sole a #Stromboli.
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The sunrise in #Stromboli. pic.twitter.com/awISnT5baM— Stromboli's Pictures (@PhotoStromboli) July 7, 2021
Posted in Theology: Scripture