Fewer than half (47 per cent) of respondents to a new poll say that they would like a funeral.

The poll of 2569 was commissioned by the thinktank Theos and carried out by YouGov in July. The authors of Theos’s report on the polling, Love, Grief, and Hope: Emotional responses to death and dying in the UK, Madeleine Pennington and Nathan Mladin, speak of a “significant realignment in British grieving practices”. They warn of the potential for a “significant pastoral gap left in the wake of a decline in formal funeral ceremonies”, and that funerals could become a “luxury or niche requirement for a few”….

In total, 24 per cent of respondents said that they did not want a funeral, while 28 per cent were not sure or did not know. Financial factors influenced the responses: 13 per cent of respondents who did not want a funeral said that this was because they did not have enough money saved.

The commonest response was: “I think the money could be better spent another way” (67 per cent); followed by “I don’t see the point” (55 per cent); and “I don’t want a traditional service” (43 per cent).

Read it all.

We get a lot of polling around religious affiliation and attendance. This @Theosthinktank one on public’s attitudes to death and funerals feels very significant. Fewer than half want a funeral with 55% of those who don’t citing ‘I don’t see the point’ https://t.co/C9nI2JZF54

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) November 28, 2023

One could object that it is not worthy of God to wield the sword. Is God not love, long-suffering and all-powerful love? A counter-question could go something like this: Is it not a bit too arrogant to presume that our contemporary sensibilities about what is compatible with God’s love are so much healthier than those of the people of God throughout the whole history of Judaism and Christianity? Recalling my arguments about the self-immunization of the evildoers, one could further argue that in a world of violence it would not be worthy of God not to wield the sword; if God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make the final end to violence God would not be worthy of our worship. Here, however, I am less interested in arguing that God’s violence is not unworthy of God than in showing that it is beneficial to us. Atlan has rightly drawn our attention to the fact that in a world of violence we are faced with an inescapable alternative: either God’s violence or human violence. Most people who insist on God’s “nonviolence” cannot resist using violence themselves (or tacitly sanctioning its use by others). They deem the talk of God’s judgment irreverent, but think nothing of entrusting judgment into human hands, persuaded presumably that this is less dangerous and more humane than to believe in a God who judges! That we should bring “down the powerful from their thrones” (Luke 1:51-52) seems responsible; that God should do the same, as the song of that revolutionary Virgin explicitly states, seems crude. And so violence thrives, secretly nourished by belief in a God who refuses to wield the sword.

My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.

–Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996) pp. 303-304, cited by yours truly in the Sunday sermon

After the afternoon discussion with Yale Professors Ivo Banac and Miroslav Wolf #Decani #Monastery #rfpcourse #Kosovo pic.twitter.com/SOaDS0MKSY

— Dečani Monastery (@DecaniMonastery) August 16, 2013

Four years ago, Victoria Gray joined a groundbreaking clinical trial that would change her life. She became the first sickle-cell patient to be treated with the gene-editing technology CRISPR—and one of the first humans to be treated with CRISPR, period. CRISPR at that point had largely been used only to tinker with cells in a lab. When Gray got her experimental infusion, scientists did not know whether it would cure her disease or go terribly awry inside her. The therapy worked—better than anyone dared to hope. With her gene-edited cells, Gray now lives virtually symptom-free. Twenty-nine of 30 eligible patients in the trial went from multiple pain crises every year to zero in 12 months following treatment.

The results are so astounding that this therapy, from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, became the first CRISPR medicine ever approved, with U.K. regulators giving the green light earlier this month; the FDA appears prepared to follow suit in the next two weeks. No one yet knows the long-term effects of the therapy, but today Gray is healthy enough to work full-time and take care of her four children.

Read it all.

Sickle-cell disease is the first disease—and unlikely the last—to be transformed by CRISPR, @sarahzhang reports: https://t.co/kYSZCbY8Ds

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 28, 2023

I am sad to say I had another brain freeze during this one and said Lamech was in the wrong chapter in genesis he is in chapter 4.

#ArtFortheWeekend

Leandro Bassano
c 1595-1596
The Last Judgement
The National Museum
Of Western Art
Tokyo
Japan@LuciaTassan @___Diamonddust_ @redne2013 @LuisaM56_ @angelicadisogno @GiuseppeTurrisi @alecoscino @mariaireneali @Hakflak @overlooki pic.twitter.com/5s5iXFZKfd

— Dil (@Asamsakti) June 27, 2020

O Sovereign God, who raisedst up (King) Kamehameha (IV) and (Queen) Emma to be rulers in Hawaii, and didst inspire and enable them to be diligent in good works for the welfare of their people and the good of thy Church: Receive our thanks for their witness to the Gospel; and grant that we, with them, may attain to the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Savior and Redeemer, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Kamehameha and Emma of Hawaii, King and Queen, 1864 & 1885

What is now the Episcopal Church in Hawaii began in 1862 when King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma invited the Church of England to send missionaries & establish a presence in Hawaii pic.twitter.com/OrnbBysC9P

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) November 28, 2023

We give Thee thanks, holy Lord, Father Almighty, eternal God, Who hast been pleased to bring us through the night to the hours of morning: we pray Thee graciously to grant that we may pass this day without sin, so that at eventide we may again give thanks to Thee; 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)

I woke up early to catch the sunrise, but instead I got a free lesson in cloud shapes. #NoRegrets
Nauset beach, Orleans, Cape Cod. #capecod #StormHour pic.twitter.com/dIF5Led9DZ

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) November 28, 2023

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber.

–Psalm 121:1-3

Today's theme is 'Snow on Trees' brought to you by @SnowHour
Pop your snowy photos in the thread below.
We pick a favourite each day!
Thank you 🙂📷 ~ Mark #StormHour #ThePhotoHour #photographychallenge pic.twitter.com/iROUmzBXov

— #ThePhotoHour (@ThePhotoHour) November 28, 2023