This deeply Christian book names and identifies with the holistic way in which Jesus approached people. It draws on “biblical insights, the lived experience of those who struggle with mental health challenges, the insights of psychiatry and the mental health sciences, and the resources of theology”. This makes it a vital resource for all those wishing to support those thus challenged and for those who care for and about them.

Particular features are a useful summary of specific illnesses in chapter one and close encounters with biblical narratives throughout, notably that on Job and his friends. The authors suggest that Job’s struggles were not outside God’s presence, but were “a valid and essential expression of faith in the midst of utter darkness”. This sense of despair is picked up in chapter three, in a reflection on the dark night of the soul as explored by St John of the Cross in the 16th century. Comparison is made with characteristics of a depressive disorder. The difficulty in disentangling spiritual and psychological struggles is named. This difficulty was the research object of the psychiatrist Glòria Durà-Vilà, who was troubled by the over-medicalisation of deep sadness and published her findings in Sadness, Depression, and the Dark Night of the Soul (Jessica Kingsley, 2017).

Read it all.

You’re invited to join @CorinPilling, UK Director of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, as he hosts the virtual launch of a new book, Struggling with God, by Christopher C.H. Cook, Isabelle Hamley, and John Swinton.
Register for free online at https://t.co/2Rt6jptgsN

— Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries (@SanctuaryMH) June 26, 2023

Connecticut, 1781. New London is burning after British troops — led by Benedict Arnold — raided the town. Dozens of people are dead. Hundreds are hurt. The sky is full of smoke.

About a month later, soldiers fight in Yorktown, Va., in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. A rallying cry: “Remember New London.”

And 242 years later, New London has not forgotten.

On a recent Saturday evening, hundreds of people gathered in the streets to burn Benedict Arnold, America’s most famous traitor, in effigy. To the beat of a fife and drum, residents marched the life-sized, two-faced puppet to its execution. Some, in tricorn hats, carried mock bayonets. Others held torches.

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On a recent Saturday evening in New London, Connecticut, hundreds of people gathered in the streets to burn Benedict Arnold, America’s most famous traitor, in effigy. https://t.co/W2HpmoASBX

— NYT Metro (@NYTMetro) September 19, 2023

The ADOSC Has Launched at CofC

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This is HUGE news, did you hear?! Bishop Edgar has appointed the Rev. Taylor Daniel as Anglican Campus Minister to The College of Charleston.

Read all about #ADOSC launching an Anglican college ministry to CofC at https://t.co/j3i1Inmfag#ACNA #collegeministry pic.twitter.com/uk2uiDTXPS

— Anglican Diocese of SC (@anglican_sc) August 9, 2023

Artist Che Lovelace was on his way to the coast on the Caribbean island of Trinidad to collect mud to use in carnival celebrations when he received a message that a church in the UK wanted him to create an artwork to commemorate the life of an African man he had never heard of.

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano was a respected abolitionist in 18th Century Britain – but, despite his significant role in the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, his story is not that well-known.

Cugoano was born in the Gold Coast, today’s Ghana. He was enslaved when he was 13 – captured with about 20 others as they were playing in a field.

His destination was the sugar plantations of the Caribbean island of Grenada. On board the ship taking him across the Atlantic Ocean, there was, as Cugoano writes, “nothing to be heard but the rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and the groans and cries of our fellow-men.”

Read it all.

Quobna Cugoano: London church honours Ghanaian-born freed slave and abolitionist https://t.co/cxpmv6lMkO

— BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) September 20, 2023

Almighty God, who didst call thy faithful servants John Coleridge Patteson and his companions to be witnesses and martyrs in the islands of Melanesia, and by their labors and sufferings didst raise up a people for thine own possession: Pour forth thy Holy Spirit upon thy Church in every land, that by the service and sacrifice of many, thy holy Name may be glorified and thy kingdom enlarged; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates John Coleridge Patteson, First Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs, 1871

Image: Carte-de-visite (1860s-70s), © National Portrait Gallery, London (CC BY-NC-ND) pic.twitter.com/jGnZAemaOt

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 20, 2023

Almighty God, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Set free thy servants from all anxious thoughts for the morrow; give us contentment with thy good gifts; and confirm our faith that according as we seek thy kingdom, thou wilt not suffer us to lack any good thing; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Today’s wonderful view … looking towards Exmoor from Dartmoor . Wes Anderson inspired colours @FujifilmUK #Dartmoor #landscapephotography @OPOTY #photography #ThePhotoHour #StormHour #hiking #travel #Devon @VisitDevon pic.twitter.com/Da7mm22HyU

— Gary James 💚🇪🇺 (@Gazpics76) September 20, 2023

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zeb′edee and John his brother, in the boat with Zeb′edee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decap′olis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

–Matthew 4:18-25

"Sun Shine" pic.twitter.com/QWPf8TrSPQ

— simon c woodley (@simoncwoodley) September 20, 2023