The Church of the Holy Comforter, Sumter, is opening its doors providing shelter to the area’s homeless this winter. The church has been welcoming from 7 to 12 guests and is open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. when the temperature drops below 40 degrees.

Sumter United Ministries (SUM) is overseeing the effort. The group provides a platform for Sumter churches to meet the needs of the elderly, working poor, disabled and homeless.

Ginny Corley, who serves as the chair of Holy Comforter’s Missions Committee reflected on how the church first decided to serve as a shelter. “We are the first church Mark Champagne (Executive Director of SUM) approached, and the timing was auspicious,” she said. “The first meeting with Mark Champagne was in August 2022 in response to a request from Mark to Fr. David for some space to use as an overnight winter shelter. During that meeting the ad hoc committee discussed the risks on both sides of using Walker Hall as a winter shelter for the unhoused. The main risk to SUM was we may lose the building at any time (SC Supreme Court ruling pending). As we were walking out of the meeting in general agreement that Walker Hall and the bathrooms could be suitable, Fr. John (Sosnowski) received a phone call letting us know that the buildings were ours. There was a definite sense we should share what had so graciously been returned. The vestry unanimously passed the subsequent proposal.

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Sumter winter shelter to help people experiencing homelessness https://t.co/aEDK2EgxsE

— News19 WLTX (@WLTX) November 30, 2022

Given that China was already struggling to contain the disease, this is an odd time to loosen restrictions. Other once-isolated places, such as Singapore and Taiwan, prepared for a spike in cases by administering vaccines, stockpiling antiviral drugs and expanding intensive-care units (icus); only then did they gradually open up. China seems to be throwing precaution to the winds. On December 7th it eased its controls by, for example, lifting test requirements for most public venues and letting people with mild infections isolate at home rather than in state-run centres. If the government has a plan to avoid the surge of infections and deaths this could bring, nobody can say what it is—indeed, the lack of clarity alone would severely undermine it.

The easing comes amid mounting public pressure, a sign that the government could not indefinitely sustain its excessively harsh zero-covid policy. For two years this let most Chinese enjoy a normal, virus-free existence and kept the economy humming. The spread of Omicron, though, meant that more and more people had become ensnared in the government’s controls. The economy was suffering. Frustration boiled over last month, when protests occurred in cities across the country.

A more accountable government might have acknowledged its errors while laying out the steps needed to leave zero-covid gradually, when life-saving measures were in place. But Xi Jinping and the Communist Party are rushing ahead, ready or not.

All signs point to not.

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Chinese officials and state media have suddenly begun telling people that Omicron is fairly harmless, no worse than the common cold. This is both jarring and disingenuous https://t.co/srRpWNthZo

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 8, 2022

Over the months that followed, the unvaccinated share of mortality fell even further, to 38 percent in May 2022. The share of deaths among people vaccinated and boosted grew significantly as well, from 12 percent in January 2022 to 36 percent in April. Those levels held roughly steady throughout the duration of the summer, during which time just about as many boosted Americans were dying as the unvaccinated. The share of deaths among older adults kept growing: In April, 79 percent of American deaths were among those 65 and older. In November, 90 percent.

As many Twitter discussions about the “base rate fallacy” have emphasized, this is not because the vaccines are ineffective — we know, also from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, that they work very well. Estimates of the effectiveness of updated bivalent boosters suggest they reduce the risk of mortality from Covid in Americans over the age of 12 by more than 93 percent compared with the population of unvaccinated. That is a very large factor.

But it isn’t the whole story, or vaccinated older adults wouldn’t now make up a larger share of Covid deaths than the unvaccinated do. That phenomenon arises from several other factors that are often underplayed. First is the simple fact that more Americans are vaccinated than not, and those older Americans most vulnerable to severe disease are far more likely to be vaccinated than others.

It is also partly a reflection of how many fewer Americans, including older ones, have gotten boosters than got the initial vaccines: 34 percent, compared with 69 percent. The number of those who have gotten updated bivalent boosters is lower still — just 12.7 percent of Americans over the age of 5.

Finally, vaccines are not as effective among older adults because the immune system weakens with age. It’s much harder to train older immune systems, and that training diminishes more quickly. In Americans between the ages of 65 and 79, for instance, vaccination reduced mortality risk from Covid more than 87 percent, compared with the unvaccinated. This is a very significant reduction, to be sure, but less than the 15-fold decline observed among those both vaccinated and bivalent-boosted in the overall population. For those 80 and above, the reduction from vaccination alone is less than fourfold.

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"Covid-19 Isn’t a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated Anymore" by David Wallace-Wells via NYT https://t.co/Mml9fhQrhT

— Francesco Shiel (@francescosz) December 7, 2022

Perhaps one underlying reason why professing Christians today are examining or embracing universalism is that they don’t want to be placed on the hot seat in a world that’s increasingly hostile toward Christianity. They’d like to avoid ever being in a position in which they must tell a non-Christian that there are dire consequences for rejecting Christ. Hell is a disturbing doctrine, an ultimate turnoff, an egregious insult. The so-called 11th commandment—“You shall not offend”—has become paramount for some. Universalism offers a semblance of Christianity with the unseemly parts edited out.

Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) spoke of liberalized Christianity in this way: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment by the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Here we have four essential doctrines—God, humanity, kingdom, and Christ—minus their hard and scandalous aspects: wrath, sin, judgment, and the cross. These words, though written by Niebuhr in the 1920s, are a fitting description of Christian universalism a century later. No wrath of God, no sin that damns, no fearful judgment before the throne, no cross of suffering to satisfy God’s justice.

Yet these are precisely the doctrines that, perhaps counterintuitively, express God’s moral goodness. These are the doctrines needed to reawaken and reenergize the church as we reach out, in humble love, to an increasingly confused and broken world that is perishing without the Savior.

Friend, don’t be fooled by universalism’s “curb appeal.” Step out of the car and examine the integrity of the house. Just be careful—it’s fragile within.

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History suggests universalism is a church-destroying doctrine. https://t.co/vv6KdqiIo6

— The Gospel Coalition (@TGC) December 7, 2022

What this rest presupposes…. 5. It contains, (1.) A ceasing from means of grace ; 6. (2.) A perfect freedom from all evils ; 7. (3.) The highest degree of the saints’ personal perfection, both in body and soul ; 8. (4.) The nearest enjoyment of God the Chief Good; 9-14. (5.) A sweet and constant action of all the powers of soul and body in this enjoyment of God ; as, for instance, bodily senses, knowledge, memory, love, joy, together with a mutual love and joy.

—The Saints Everlasting Rest (1652)

"If the body shall be less employed, oh, how shall the soul be taken up?"

Baxter is talking about perpetual worship without physical preoccupations in Heaven, but I see I get a taste of that with cerebral palsy on Earth. What I can't do physically doesn't distract from worship. pic.twitter.com/gj7Gz1lQtj

— Brian Campbell Eshleman (@brian_esh73) December 3, 2022

We offer thanks, most gracious God, for the devoted witness of Richard Baxter, who out of love for thee followed his conscience at cost to himself, and at all times rejoiced to sing thy praises in word and deed; and we pray that our lives, like his, may be well-tuned to sing the songs of love, and all our days be filled with praise of Jesus Christ our Lord; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

8 Dec 1691: d. Richard Baxter, puritan, theologian, major writer, poet #otd

His style of writing is captivating. pic.twitter.com/Dac1A70WEi

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) December 8, 2022

O Thou, Who art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and on Whom the eyes of all do wait, Who crownest the year with Thy goodness, and openest Thine hand and finest all things living with plenteousness: every day we give thanks unto Thee, and praise Thy Name for ever and ever; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Finally on my week of photos from the #LakeDistrict is a simply perfect winter's morning on Derwent Water – with fog and perfect mirrors reflections. All I could say when I arrived was WOW!

Notes: 1.3 sec at f – 11 ISO 50 #thursdaymorning #ThePhotoHour #Keswick #Cumbria pic.twitter.com/OQnCuJUOHU

— Gary Holpin | Photography (@GaryHolpin) December 8, 2022

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over him who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

–Psalm 37:7-8

Today’s awe-inspiring sunrise and full moon on Coast Guard beach, Eastham – Cape Cod National Seashore. #capecod #sunrise #StormHour #fullmoon pic.twitter.com/EeSMW14Wwg

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) December 8, 2022