It is late Summer, the living is easy, and the Elves are feeling lazy. Can you help them out with ideas for an open thread or post? Have you seen something you would like to draw others attention to?
Do you have any suggestions?
Open Thread: What would you like to talk about?
Posted in * Culture-Watch, Blogging & the Internet
With twitter, facebook and other social media providing instant albeit short interactions, are weblogs approaching their sell by date?
How many “Days of the Lord” are there? We had one at Pentecost. We also have one when we die and enter eternity like in 2nd Peter, Chapter 3. Are there others?
Where is an in depth analysis of “Speaking in Tongues”. Is there a scholarly approach to be found anywhere that is understandable to a 12 year old?
My favorite childhood vacation was to Gettysburg. My dad was a Civil War buff, later a re-enactor, and it was the last trip we took my grandmother, his mother, with us. We visited family I’d never met before on the way there, I made a friend at the pool when we all went there evenings who was visiting from the strange and exotic land of New England, I ate shoo-fly pie. And from Jennie Wade to Armistead’s last ride, I learned something of the story and the sacrifice in why this place was meaningful and how all these monuments came to be there. I was barely Boy Scout age, burdened with three younger siblings and responsibility I barely fulfilled in watching out for them at Devil’s Den and on Little Round Top, but it became the beaux-ideal of what a real vacation feels like to me ever since. The summer of ’73 gave me a taste of family and history and mystery that I first began to respond to in my own right, not simply as a child along for the ride.
What vacation experience gave you the model for what makes for getaway and renewal and enjoyment?
[Open Thread: What vacation experience brought you renewal and enjoyment?]
Resources for renewal during spiritual slow downs.
[Open Thread: What resources may help renewal during spiritual slow downs?]
I am skeptical of some of the alleged Ashley Madison data being reported upon. Comparing the numbers with the population and discounting children and the elderly,it would seem locally that between one in about every six to ten adult people regionally plunk down money to use the site.
I was looking for something in an office cabinet yesterday and found a picture of the Vestry of Christ Church Greenville, SC in 2002. Of the 14 vestry members, 4 are left a at CC. Five are at St. Paul’s Anglican, my church, including the Junior Warden in that picture and the next Junior Warden. The Senior Warden is at a PCA Church, but his daughter is on the vestry at St. Paul’s and he visits St Paul’s regularly. Two are at “mega” (very orthodox) independent churches. One is now a Methodist. One is deceased and only 4 are still at CC. Of those, one is a very close friend of mine who wants to leave, but his wife won’t leave because she wants their daughters to get married at CC, one is still at CC, but his older brother (a former Senior Warden at CC) is a member at St. Paul’s and he has visited St. Paul’s often. One is deceased. Of the four who are still at CC and none of them has ever served on the Vestry again. The goal of GC 2000 was to double the size of TEC by 2020. TEC will probably lose 1/2 of its membership by 2020. Thanks, Louie Crew. Your work here is done.
[Open Thread: What has changed in the last decade?]
David Keller (#6).
Interesting anecdotal evidence, even if it’s sad. There are lots of bits of such evidence that show that TEC or NEC (the New Episcopal Church, post Gen. Convention this year) is badly crippled, and like the Titanic, it’s going down. For me, the most damning is the national mean/average for the age of lay people in the pews. That mean age is now over 60, whereas the mean age of the national population as a whole is 35. Obviously, that is an ominous gap, that has been inexorably increasing for many years. Gray heads everywhere you look in TEC, and very, very few young families with kids to be found (less every year).
The dream of ++Michael Curry and other leaders in TEC to make evangelism the highest priority in TEC and to grow the brand is almost ludicrous. They have no real gospel to share, only a false gospel of unlimited tolerance and inclusivity.
It reminds me of the state of denial that evangelical UMC bishop Richard Wilke complained about when the UMC back in the 1980’s made a solemn resolution to reverse the denomination’s decline and in fact double the membership in a short time. Wilke’s scathing comment was this: [i]”We thought we were just drifting along, like a sailboat on a lazy summer day. Instead, we’ve been wasting away like a leukemia victim, after the blood transfusions no longer work.”[/i] And that was back in the 1980’s! It’s far worse today.
But just so we don’t end on such a sour, negative note. While I think that TEC is hopelessly doomed, I’m confident that the best days for orthodox Anglicanism on this continent are still to come. Remember the parable of the growth of the mustard seed.
P.S. Back in 1998, I was interviewed for an associate position on the staff of CC, Greenville. Boy, am I glad that I wasn’t chosen! (And I suspect that Sarah Hey is glad too, wink)
David Handy+
David Handy–You know, back in 1998 it wasn’t that bad. We were really into Claude Payne’s book on Evangelism and the rector had not gone to the dark side (yet)–that didn’t happen until 2004. Almost all of the vestry went to DioTex Evangelism conference in 2001 and 2002. A large group of us, including the rector, rector emeritus, a couple of staff members and about 1/2 the vestry went to Dallas in October 2003 for the original Network meeting. After that, the bishop started putting on the pressure and we started collapsing. As for the Anglican Communion, I couldn’t agree more. My church is part of Rwanda and we are growing like crazy! A very “funny” story is how one of the liberal members of CC grabbed me up at a non-church function and said to me “so I hear you have an f(expletive) c(racial semi-expletive) bishop now”. But of course, you and I are the racists! Thanks for your comments.
In response to Pageantmaster’s comment, yes I believe blogs are fading as a useful means of communication, even though I have been following TitusOneNine for years and have filched leads from it to post on my Facebook group, Anglican Evangelicals. No one reads my blog, An Anglican Witness, anymore, whereas we are approving new members of the Facebook group daily. I was very pleased when Kendall joined the group.
[Open Thread: Is the day of the blog over?]
#2 I would recommend John Howe’s book on the gifts of the Spirit. For an interesting historical over view by Roman Catholic scholars, look at the following. http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Initiation-Baptism-Holy-Spirit/dp/0814650090/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441899436&sr=1-1&keywords=christian+initiation+and+baptism+in+the+holy+spirit+evidence+from+the+first+eight+centuries