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Daily Archives: February 9, 2024

(Church Times) C of E General Synod asked to tackle bullying behaviour by lay people in church

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

LEGAL sanction, including the possibility of disqualification from holding office, is necessary to address bullying by lay officer-holders, a motion set to be debated by General Synod this month argues.

The private members’ motion, brought by the Archdeacon of Blackburn, the Ven. Mark Ireland, asks the Synod to recognise “the serious pastoral problems and unfairness that arise while clergy can be subject to penalties for bullying that include prohibition and removal from office but there is no means of disqualifying a churchwarden, PCC member, or other lay officer who is guilty of bullying from holding office”.

It asks the Archbishops’ Council to “bring forward legislative proposals which would enable a churchwarden, PCC member, or other lay officer who was found to have conducted him-or herself in such a manner to be disqualified from holding office”.

Read it all.

Posted in Church of England (CoE), Ethics / Moral Theology, Ministry of the Laity, Pastoral Care, Pastoral Theology

(WSJ) Panic, Fury and Blame: Inside the White House After Report Targets Biden’s Age

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Some Democrats inside and outside of Biden’s bubble were privately anxious about what’s next for the campaign. The report came during a week when Biden made a number of high-profile flubs, confusing current and past world leaders. He didn’t help matters when he referred to the Egyptian president as the president of Mexico in his remarks on the counsel’s report Thursday night, and his decision to forego a high-profile interview ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl has also drawn scrutiny.

“Anytime his age and capacity is front and center is bad for his re-election prospects. That said, it does provide an opportunity to more forcefully deal with this issue which they have to do,” said Brian Goldsmith, a Biden donor and a Democratic consultant based in Los Angeles. “The right response is that Biden is a better president because of his age and wisdom and experience, not despite his age and wisdom and experience.”

“They need to find a way to jujitsu this and turn it from a negative into a positive because it is not going away,” Goldsmith said. He added: “Avoiding the Super Bowl interview is a mistake.”

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Posted in Aging / the Elderly, America/U.S.A., Anthropology, Ethics / Moral Theology, Health & Medicine, Politics in General, President Joe Biden, Psychology

(Eleanor Parker) Earendel at Epiphany, the Bishop of Truro and J R R Tolkien

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

I learn from this wonderful website that after Stubbs became Bishop of Truro, the carol was performed at his cathedral’s ‘Festival of Lessons and Carols’ in 1911 – Truro being the place where services of ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’ first originated at the end of the 19th century.

That same winter, 1911, the young Tolkien had just finished his first term at Oxford. A year or two later, in the course of his studies, he stumbled across the Old English ‘Earendel’ poem, and its first lines had a remarkable effect on him:

I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened by sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English.

Tolkien adopted Earendel into his own growing imaginative cosmos, as a mariner ‘who launched his ship like a bright spark from the havens of the Sun… a herald star, and a sign of hope to men’. He later called the Old English poem ‘rapturous words from which ultimately sprang the whole of my mythology’. His sense that there was something ‘very remote and strange’ about the words eala Earendel, engla beorhtast is one of those instincts no one can explain. Why these lines more than any other? What moved Stubbs to make them the basis of his Epiphany carol? No one really knows what ‘Earendel’ means, and yet perhaps it draws the imagination all the more for that, as the Star of Bethlehem drew the Magi on their long and weary way. Such is the magic of mystery, of words half-understood – of a glimpse of Godlight.

Read it all.

Posted in Church History, Poetry & Literature, Theology

(CT) Super Bowl Gambling Grows, But Pastors Are on the Sidelines

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

With the Super Bowl this weekend, don’t expect many pastors to place a bet on Kansas City or San Francisco to win the game, but a few may have more than a rooting interest riding on the game.

Despite its legalization across many states, US Protestant pastors remain opposed to sports gambling, but they’re not doing much about it, according to a Lifeway Research study. Few pastors (13%) favor legalizing sports betting nationwide and most (55%) say the practice is morally wrong.

“Anything can happen in sports, and many Americans want the same allure of an unexpected win in sports to translate into an unexpected financial windfall,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Most pastors see moral hazards in sports betting and believe American society would be better off without it.”

Read it all.

Posted in Ethics / Moral Theology, Gambling, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Race/Race Relations, Sports

(NYT) At 116, She Has Outlived Generations of Loved Ones. But Her Entire Town Has Become Family

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

When Edith Ceccarelli was born in February 1908, Theodore Roosevelt was president, Oklahoma had just become the nation’s 46th state and women did not yet have the right to vote.

At 116, Ms. Ceccarelli is the oldest known person in the United States and the second oldest on Earth. She has lived through two World Wars, the advent of the Ford Model T — and the two deadliest pandemics in American history.

For most of that time, she has lived in one place: Willits, a village tucked in California’s redwood forests that was once known for logging but now may be better known for Ms. Ceccarelli.

Read it all.

Posted in Aging / the Elderly, America/U.S.A., Health & Medicine

A Prayer for the day from New Every Morning

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

O thou in whom we live and move and have our being, awaken us to thy presence that we may walk in thy world as thy children. Grant us reverence for all thy creation, that we may treat our fellow men with courtesy, and all living things with gentleness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—New Every Morning (The Prayer Book Of The Daily Broadcast Service) [BBC, 1900]

Posted in Spirituality/Prayer

From the Morning Bible Readings

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

–Romans 13:1-7

Posted in Theology: Scripture