Reflecting on the agreement, Bishop Edgar said, “This settlement agreement allows us to invest our diocesan energy, time, focus, and resources in gospel ministry rather than litigation. While the losses we have experienced, including those of St. Christopher and several of our parish buildings are painful, I am grateful that the work we have done has brought an end to litigation between our dioceses. I am grateful, too, for the willingness to work to avoid further litigation that Bishop Woodliff-Stanley showed throughout this process. These hard past few months were made easier by her kind and generous willingness to compromise to reach this settlement.”

Bishop Woodliff-Stanley echoed this sentiment: “From the very beginning of this process, I have been grateful for the gracious spirit of Bishop Edgar in doing just this work with us. I am grateful for his leadership and his generosity. While each diocese has had to leave things on the table to get to this moment, and while we experience pain over losses of some of the historic churches our members hold dear, even still, we have seen the Spirit at work in drawing us toward God’s redemptive way of love at every juncture.”

While we give thanks that the legal disputes at the diocesan level are being brought to a close, we nevertheless recognize that a number of our parishes await a final resolution of their legal concerns. It is our prayer that these issues will soon come to a resolution as well as we move forward together as a diocese into this next season of ministry.

What does this next season look like? For some, it will be full of new challenges – and opportunities – as they as they learn to minister outside the walls of their beloved church buildings. For others we’ll seek to pull together as a diocese and grow in our roles as supportive brothers and sisters. For all of us we’ll continue to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and pursue the work of the gospel in South Carolina and beyond out from under the shadow of litigation with a renewed focus on our mission and ministry. Therefore, let us move forward prayerfully, in thanksgiving for this Spirit-led settlement, and in hope for the work of the Gospel and continued in-breaking of the Kingdom of God.

The Rt. Revd Chip Edgar, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina
The Revd B. Tyler Prescott, President, ADOSC Standing Committee

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We welcome our new Bishop, the Rt Revd Chip Edgar, who was consecrated March 12, 2022. Let's pray regularly for our new bishop, his wife and family and labor alongside him to produce fruit in the vineyard to which we're called. View the service: https://t.co/4dRKj3inei pic.twitter.com/ShByUuXRIk

— Anglican Diocese of SC (@anglican_sc) March 13, 2022

National Migration Week, an event has been celebrated by the Catholic Church for nearly half a century, was September 19-25. The week always culminates in a celebration with the Vatican on the last Sunday of the month, called The World Day of Migrants and Refugees. The theme this year is “Building the Future with Migrants and Refugees,” which I believe is a timely and appropriate theme due to the recent events in our country.

On August 31, 2022, approximately 100 asylum seekers and migrants arrived in Chicago. Since that date, hundreds more have come into our city. Initially, these asylum seekers and migrants entered the U.S. via our southern border and were bussed from Texas. The people arriving on these buses have already been actively fleeing persecution from their home countries for days or weeks, and were forced to leave so that they and their families could be safe. They crossed the U.S. border seeking safety in the form of asylum.

Asylum seekers are not in violation of any federal laws, despite some popular thought. According to The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), “Asylum is a form of protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States instead of being removed to a country of feared persecution.” Actually, it is federal law that anyone who is on U.S. soil can apply for asylum, whether it is through an official point of entry or crossing over a border. It was created as a means for persecuted people to escape violence and death and find protection in our country. Once they are on our land, they can apply for asylum and safely await their case.

Like all immigrants to the United States, asylum seekers and migrants must undergo a long and lengthy application and interview process, and it can take years to see a judge who will decide their case. While they are waiting, asylum seekers and their families need all the necessities that we do: a place to stay, food, and money….

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Really appreciate Lora Kwan of @WorldRelief sharing "Why the Church Should Lead in Building the Future with Migrants and Refugees" on "The Better Samaritan" blog this week–especially with all the recent asylum seekers and migrant arrivals in Chicago: https://t.co/0HcdqiSBHi

— Jamie Aten (@drjamieaten) September 27, 2022

This is a very powerful and demanding book that is likely to change your thinking profoundly. Teresa Morgan is an Anglican priest, Professor of Graeco-Roman history at Oxford, and shortly to become Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Yale Divinity School.

Her new book is a follow-up to her widely acclaimed Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and fides in the early Roman Empire (OUP, 2015). In the latter, she argued that pistis (in Greek) and fides (in Latin), often translated as “faith” or “belief” in the New Testament, in reality usually signified “trust” across Classical, Jewish, and Christian first-century literature. She argued this at length (625 pages), and with impressive scholarship.

The new book repeats and occasionally corrects her earlier claims, and adds an extended theological discussion of them, together with insights about “trust” from recent philosophy and social science. As she has devoted far more than 1000 densely argued pages across the two books to a single issue, it is going to take a formidable (and highly assiduous) scholar to rebut her central thesis successfully.

Has this mammoth task been worth while? My verdict is a very emphatic “Yes”….

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Robin Gill is impressed by a densely argued theological explorationhttps://t.co/ss9aIGY35o

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 27, 2022

There’s a short stretch along the Charleston waterfront, just a few hundred yards from the South Carolina Aquarium, where tens of thousands of enslaved people took their first steps in the New World.

The site, Gadsden’s Wharf, was among the most prolific international slave trading ports in the United States. But until recently, the site bore no mention of its slave-trading past. It was only during the development of the International African American Museum — a landmark $100 million project that has been in the works for more than 20 years — that researchers brought to light the full history of Gadsden’s Wharf.

“We were part of how Gadsden’s Wharf was coming into community recognition and community conversation,” said Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and chief executive. While Gadsden’s Wharf has long been acknowledged as a historic site, she said, “we weren’t actually talking about what that history was.”

The I.A.A.M., which opens in January, will change that. Dedicated to “telling the full story of the African American journey, from ancient African civilization to modern day,” the museum’s nearly 150,000 square feet of space will include nine galleries as well as a genealogy center where visitors can get help researching their family histories. Dr. Matthews said she is already seeing a strong response from the public.

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‘We Tell The Whole Truth’: A Talk With the Head of Charleston’s New African American Museum https://t.co/twzyHY5Xef

— Black History Heroes (@HistoryHeroes) September 23, 2022

Creator of wonder and majesty, who didst inspire thy poet Thomas Traherne with mystical insight to see thy glory in the natural world and in the faces of men and women around us: Help us to know thee in thy creation and in our neighbors, and to understand our obligations to both, that we may ever grow into the people thou hast created us to be; through our Savior Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, in everlasting light. Amen.

"He was excluded the Kingdom of Heaven, where nothing can enter that hates God,+whence nothing can be excluded that loves him. The loss of that Love is Hell: the Sight+Possession of that Love is Heaven. Thus did sin exclude him Heaven" Thomas Traherne, A Sober View of Dr Twisse pic.twitter.com/YD2OgYxoZa

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 27, 2018

Cleanse our minds, O Lord, we beseech thee, of all anxious thoughts for ourselves, that we may learn not to trust in the abundance of what we have, save as tokens of thy goodness and grace, but that we may commit ourselves in faith to thy keeping, and devote all our energy of soul, mind and body to the work of thy kingdom and the furthering of the purposes of thy divine righteousness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

"Highland Autumn Morning"#AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Highlands #monongahelaNationalForest pic.twitter.com/bH64e8oOhR

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) September 27, 2022

The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are round about him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him, and burns up his adversaries round about. His lightnings lighten the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.

–Psalm 97:1-6

Wow! NYC sunrise!! #StormHour #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/rgNyfVB0Do

— Brian Sudol (@sudbri) September 27, 2022