John McCain and religion: Senator was raised Episcopal, attended Baptist church

From Arizona-

Arizonans will honor the life of Sen. John McCain at a memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church. McCain and his family attended the church for many years. 

The service will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday. 

McCain, who was raised Episcopal and later attended a Phoenix Baptist church with his family, rarely spoke publicly about his Christian beliefs. However, when talking about his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he often shared how he was able to keep faith. 

McCain, who died Saturday at age 81, was raised in an Episcopal family and attended a private all-boys boarding school where he was required to attend chapel services. 

He spent three years at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, before graduating in 1954.

"This country has lost one of our great public servants and our school family has lost one of our most inspirational examples of the intellectual and moral courage our school's mission calls on us to develop in each of our graduates," said Head of School Charley Stillwell in a statement.

More here-

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/08/27/john-mccain-religion-beliefs-raised-episcopal-attended-baptist-church-prisoner-war-pow/1109643002/ 

and here-

https://wjla.com/news/local/episcopal-high-school-alexandria-john-mccain 

and here-

https://www.christianexaminer.com/article/lifelong-episcopalian-senator-john-mccain-remembered-as-hero-who-stood-quietly-for-his-faith/51875.htm

Sen. John McCain: Known as a veteran but also a man of quiet faith

From RNS-

McCain was diagnosed in July 2017 with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

The longtime Arizona Republican senator, reared in the Episcopal Church, attended a Southern Baptist megachurch in his later years. He viewed himself as a Christian but had “a distrust of the religious right and a faith that is too public, too political,” author Stephen Mansfield, author of books about the faiths of presidents and presidential candidates, told Religion News Service in December 2017.

During his 5 ½ years in a POW camp in Vietnam, McCain drew on his Episcopal roots — his great-grandfather was an Episcopal minister and McCain attended Episcopal day and boarding schools.
In his family memoir, “Faith of My Fathers,” he recounted how he “prayed more often and more fervently than I ever had as a free man.”

George “Bud” Day, a fellow POW, said McCain was among those who volunteered to preach at religious services they were eventually permitted to hold at the prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton.”

More here-

https://religionnews.com/2018/08/25/sen-john-mccain-known-as-a-veteran-but-also-a-man-of-quiet-faith/

Sometimes, faith helps us find the words for the roller coaster of emotions we're feeling

From North Carolina-

May: the mercurial month. It sweeps in, giving us the short, sweet life of peonies and the sharp sting of bees. Flowers and flash flooding showers. Fifty degrees one day and 90 the next.

It plays havoc with emotions, too. Ever since the calendar turned the corner to May, I’ve been jolting from joy to utter sadness and back again.

Joy: Sitting in the cool predawn of a Wednesday with my infant grandson, Henry, in my lap. In a few hours, he and his mom would be back on a plane, headed home after his first visit to North Carolina.


Either Henry is tone deaf, or my version of “I love you, a bushel and a peck,” is not so hard on a 2-month-old’s ears. In between songs, I told him about the house where we raised his mother, the baby bluebirds who hatched at about the same time as he did, and about all the dogs who lived in this house for the past 30 years. Joy joy joy joy down in my heart!

Read more here:

http://www.newsobserver.com/living/article211764384.html#storylink=cpy

Jimmy Carter on his journey of "Faith"

From CBS-

At age 93, former President Jimmy Carter has been out of office for more than 37 years -- plenty of time to reflect on his life, his mortality, and on his religious faith ... reflections he recently shared with Jane Pauley:

You don't often see crowds lining up for Sunday School lessons, but not many churches have a U.S. president doing the teaching.

Former President Jimmy Carter came to Maranatha Baptist Church in 1981, on the very first Sunday after he left the White House. He teaches whenever he can, and when he does, the crowd comes from far and wide.

Back in 2015, when word came that melanoma had spread to his liver and then his brain, it looked like the end. But when Pauley met President Carter at his library in Atlanta this month, he seemed fit as ever. Thanks to a new immunotherapy treatment, his cancer hasn't come back.

It's an unexpected new chapter for a man who was ready to die -- and had already said his goodbyes.

More here-

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jimmy-carter-on-his-journey-of-faith/

Questions of God Challenge a Pentecostal Preacher to Change in ‘Come Sunday’

From MSN-

Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers a deeply moving portrayal of a Pentecostal preacher in the throes of a religious crisis in "Come Sunday," a glimpse into the soul of a real-life man challenged to change his beliefs.

Based on a reported segment on "This American Life," "Come Sunday" tells the story of Bishop Carlton Pearson, who for many years led a million-strong Pentecostal ministry based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, until 1998, when he found his faith challenged.

Pearson decided that he no longer believed in hell, no longer believed that only saved Christians would go to heaven and no longer believed that his form of faith was the only one that God could accept. In so doing, he broke with the orthodoxy of his mentor Oral Roberts and threw his ministry into confusion.

More here-

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/questions-of-god-challenge-a-pentecostal-preacher-to-change-in-e2-80-98come-sunday-e2-80-99/ar-AAv2mHc

Russell Brand Sat Down with Theologian Alister McGrath for a Fascinating Conversation About Faith

From Relevant-

Actor, comedian and author Russell Brand recently sat down with Anglican priest and professor of science and religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford and professor of divinity at Gresham College Alister McGrath for a really interesting conversation about God and faith.

The discussion took place on Brand’s Under the Skin podcast, and if you’ve ever listened to Brand’s web series before, you know that he’s pretty open to a range of ideas. In the show, McGrath explains his own journey from atheism to committed Christianity.

More here-

https://relevantmagazine.com/slice/russell-brand-sat-down-with-theologian-alister-mcgrath-for-a-fascinating-conversation-about-faith/

The Crisis of Western Civ

From The New York Times-

Between 1935 and 1975, Will and Ariel Durant published a series of volumes that together were known as “The Story of Civilization.” They basically told human history (mostly Western history) as an accumulation of great ideas and innovations, from the Egyptians, through Athens, Magna Carta, the Age of Faith, the Renaissance and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The series was phenomenally successful, selling over two million copies.

That series encapsulated the Western civilization narrative that people, at least in Europe and North America, used for most of the past few centuries to explain their place in the world and in time. This narrative was confidently progressive. There were certain great figures, like Socrates, Erasmus, Montesquieu and Rousseau, who helped fitfully propel the nations to higher reaches of the humanistic ideal.

This Western civ narrative came with certain values — about the importance of reasoned discourse, the importance of property rights, the need for a public square that was religiously informed but not theocratically dominated. It set a standard for what great statesmanship looked like. It gave diverse people a sense of shared mission and a common vocabulary, set a framework within which political argument could happen and most important provided a set of common goals.

More here-

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/opinion/the-crisis-of-western-civ.html?emc=edit_th_20170421&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=35897762&_r=0&referer

Q&A with Martin Scorsese: Director examines his own spiritual journey

From Providence (originally LA Times)-

At a 1988 dinner following the premiere of Martin Scorsese's controversial testament of faith, "The Last Temptation of Christ," Paul Moore, then the Episcopal bishop of New York, told Scorsese about a book he should read. Within a day or two, Moore sent the filmmaker a copy of "Silence," Shusaku Endo's novel about two Jesuit priests who travel to Japan in 1639 to find their mentor, a man rumored to have renounced his beliefs under torture.

When Scorsese began reading the novel a year later, he found he couldn't shake the story of its conflicted main character, Father Sebastiao Rodrigues, a man working through his own pride and doubts in his quest to serve his God. Scorsese came close to making "Silence" several times in the intervening decades. Now that he has, he views the finished film as a "stripping away of everything extraneous to get to the essence, the spiritual."

More here-

http://www.providencejournal.com/entertainmentlife/20170112/qampa-with-martin-scorsese-director-examines-his-own-spiritual-journey

I lost my faith in God. Then I found it. Now it’s complicated.

From The Washington Post-

For some people, losing belief in God is as easy as taking off a sweater that’s grown too tight. There’s a sense of relief and freedom. But when I became an atheist, that’s not how I felt at all. Losing God was like watching my best friend die.

When I was a kid, Jesus was my best friend. That sounds hokey — the kind of phrase someone might drop while giving you a sales pitch on being “born again” — but I mean it literally. I was a fat kid with a bowl cut who almost exclusively wore Hawaiian shirts and loved computer programing. That wasn’t exactly a recipe for popularity in the 1980s, so I spent a lot of time during recess hiding from bullies at the edge of the playground. There beneath the trees, I would pray to Jesus about feeling slow, fat and stupid. He always listened, and He never made fun of me.

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/16/i-lost-my-faith-in-god-then-i-found-it-now-its-complicated/?utm_term=.3eeecea5da6a&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

Is Obama Really a Christian?

From The National Review-

Seven years after Jeremiah Wright came to national fame as President Obama’s radical pastor, a man who declared “God damn America” from the pulpit, the president’s faith is still a matter of controversy. With a new presidential election looming, it’s apparently urgently important for members of the media to know whether Republicans such as Scott Walker believe that President
Obama is a Christian. 

Walker’s answer — “I don’t know” — is not one the media want to hear. But how can any man know another man’s heart — especially the heart of a person he’s never met? Who but God knows our deepest beliefs? To the extent that a president bares his soul to anyone, it won’t be to a reporter or to any person likely to speak to a reporter. Thus, any pundit or commentator who purports to declare what a president “really believes” on matters of faith should be viewed with deep suspicion.
Read more at:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415266/obama-really-christian-david-french

“It’s Not a Matter of Obeying the Bible”: 8 Questions for Walter Brueggemann

From Faith Street-

Dr. Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential contemporary theologians. His dozens of books and hundreds of articles have shaped American sermons, as Brueggemann’s work — especially on the Old Testament and the Psalms — has been widely utilized by seminaries and pastors across the country.

Recently, I caught up with Dr. Brueggemann during a lectureship series sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy at the University of Findlay.

What’s your main message for young church leaders today?
We in the United States live in a deathly social context that’s marked by consumerism and militarism and the loss of the common good. Younger people that are committed to the gospel have to think carefully about how to critique that dominant system of military consumerism and how to imagine alternative forms of life that are not defined by those corrosive pressures.

More here-

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2015/01/09/walter-brueggemann-church-gospel-bible/35739

Anglicanism keeps muddling on — thank God

From The Spectator (UK)-

Its findings are reassuringly unsurprising. For example, almost one-third of the clergy identify as evangelical; exactly one-third as Catholic; and just over one-third as something in the middle. In a different question, a quarter identify as conservative. Just over half want to keep the established Church in its current form; the rest want some sort of reform. Most call for the Anglican Communion to be more accepting of diversity, rather than seek stricter uniformity. Same in relation to the national Church. Sensible middle-way muddling-through remains the dominant approach: half the clergy think that Christians are discriminated against in some way by our secular society; half oppose same-sex marriage. (39 per cent are in favour of it, which I suppose is a strong body of dissent from Church teaching, but hardly surprising.)

More here-

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/theo-hobson/2014/10/anglicanism-keeps-muddling-on-thank-god/

Doubt as a Sign of Faith

From The New York Times-

Certainty is so often overrated.

This is especially the case when it comes to faith, or other imponderables.

When the Most Rev. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, said recently that at times he questioned if God was really there, much of the reaction was predictably juvenile: Even God’s earthly emissary isn’t sure if the whole thing is made up!

The International Business Times called it “the doubt of the century.” Archbishop Welby’s admission had not just “raised a few eyebrows,” it declared, but “sparked concerns if the leader of the Church of England would one day renounce Christianity or spirituality as a whole.” Another journalist wrote excitedly, “Atheism is on the rise and it appears as though even those at the top of the church are beginning to have doubts.”

More here-

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/opinion/julia-baird-doubt-as-a-sign-of-faith.html?emc=edit_ty_20140925&nl=opinion&nlid=20271556&_r=0

Episcopalians on Science and Faith: gettin’ it done

From Patheos-

“The goal of human knowing is neither to exalt science over other forms of inquiry nor to use theology as a magic wand to make things we can’t otherwise explain vanish. The goal of human knowing is instead to seek to engage God, the world, and ourselves in one unified frame of meaning.”
~The Very Rev. Gary Hall (Dean, Washington National Cathedral), “Cathedral Age” (Autumn 2012)

Recently I stumbled onto a website of the Episcopal Church, The Network for Science, Technology, and Faith. This website is an attempt to foster community on the issue of science and faith stemming from the Episcopal Church’s recent (77th General Convention, July 2012) statement affirming the essential compatibility of science and faith.

One resource developed by this body is a Catechism of Creation made up of three parts: Theology of Creation, Science and Faith, and Caring for Creation. The presence of Parts 1 and 3 suggests a full-orbed approach that I feel is typically not part of the evangelical dialogue, and there is much to discuss here. But I want to focus on Part 2.

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/05/episcopalians-on-science-and-faith-gettin-it-done-evangelicals-could-learn-something/

Jackie Robinson: How God used two faith-filled believers to desegregate baseball

A "lift" from "T19"-

The biographical film “42” depicts Jackie Robinson’s courageous battle to break the color barrier in major league baseball. At the same time, the film provides a glimpse of his religious faith, which afforded the strength he needed to overcome fierce opposition.
“It took two Christians to pull this off,” says Chris Lamb, the author of “Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training” (University of Nebraska, 2004). “Robinson was a Christian and Branch Rickey was a Christian,” he notes. “Sometimes we miss this.”

Lamb was blind to it himself until he researched Robinson’s life for his book. “I kept wondering all these years what kept Robinson together,” he says. “Finally I realized what I missed before – the core came from above.”

The film accurately depicts the role of Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey in advancing desegregation in baseball. Rickey, a devout Methodist, was sometimes known as “the deacon” due to his forthright convictions.

More here-

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2013/s13040084.htm

Obama's Former 'Pastor in Chief' Joshua DuBois Testifies of President's 'Deep Faith'

From Christian Post-

Joshua DuBois, the ordained Pentecostal minister who led the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under President Barack Obama, said in a recent interview that his former boss is "a deeply faithful president and didn't need a whole bunch of help cultivating that faith" during his four-year tenure at the White House.

DuBois, 30, resigned from his post in February and has since become a religion columnist at the Daily Beast and is set to teach faith-based courses at New York University this year. He told ABC News outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., where the first family recently attended Easter service, that President Obama had a penchant for the Book of Job and other Old Testament writings in the Bible when it came to his daily devotionals.

"He spent a lot of time thinking about the Book of Job and Job overcoming trials," said DuBois, reflecting on the daily readings he would send to the president. "We also spent a lot of time in the prophets, particularly the prophet Isaiah. But [he] reflects on some theologians as well, like C.S. Lewis and Howard Thurman."

Read more at

http://www.christianpost.com/news/obamas-former-pastor-in-chief-joshua-dubois-testifies-of-presidents-deep-faith-93105/#5mBJDF3SJ2q605GK.99

Faith and Values: Faith is golden. Beliefs are overrated

From Bethlehem (PA)

Faith is golden. Beliefs are overrated, as are works.

When one reduces religion to either beliefs or good works, both are overrated. Reductionism (think "nothing but") usually destroys anything it attempts to explain, as in: religion is nothing but belief or religion is nothing but morality.

Morality itself has for many been reduced to nothing but sexual morality. It is so much more, embracing personal, business and community relationships. And faith is so much more than belief, as in "I set my heart on" God rather than purely intellectual acts of belief.


Belief and good works are overrated especially when we think of them as prerequisites to being befriended by God.


Some 50 years ago, I sat in a university classroom in Rome when a professor introduced his course on the theology of revelation –– what we know about God because God told us –– with this image.

In a large lecture hall with several hundred students from perhaps 50 countries, he paced, slowly, on a raised platform.

He pressed one white dot with chalk on an enormous blackboard. After a dramatic pause, he said, in French-accented Latin, "The white is what we know about God. The black is what we don't. What we know is little. But the little God has given us to know is precious."

Among that precious little are two biblical themes: Be not afraid and you are loved.

More here-

http://www.mcall.com/features/religion/mc-faith-values-lewellis-0526-20120526,0,2153356.story

Anglican bishop issues challenges

From Canada-

Each year, for the past five years, some 300 people have assembled at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Cobourg, on the first Saturday of March.

They come from the Trent Durham area of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, which extends from Pickering to Brighton and north to Haliburton. For a large part of the day, they attend a choice of 30 workshops on a wide variety of topics, ranging from such broadly based subjects as the future of the Anglican Church to highly personal ones about various ways of living an individual Christian life.

Two sessions of particular interest this year were presented by the Bishop of Trent Durham, the Rt. Rev. Linda Nicholls. In one, she spoke about the basis of Christian faith and its application in daily life in today’s world. In the other, about where the church is situated at this very challenging time in its history, and what to do about it.

“Christianity is not just something that has to be believed, but an act of faith that has to be experienced,” Nicholls said.

“Everyone simply has to come face-to-face with God and decide the way of Christ is the way of life…. We must have intimacy with Jesus before we have a story to tell,” she said.

More here-

http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3495500

The Super Bowl's faithy moments

From CNN-

From rejected religiously-themed TV ads to players kneeling in prayer, Super Bowl XLV had no shortage of faithy moments.

Even before opening kick off there were faith-based controversies.

An ad uploaded in a make-your-own-Super-Bowl-ad competition featured a priest swapping out communion bread for Doritos and wine for Pepsi - which owns Doritos and sponsored the contest – in hopes of boosting church attendance.

USA Today reported that the ad was widely criticized and pulled from the competition's website.

Next came JesusHatesObama.com, a political novelty t-shirt company that had dueling bobble heads of Jesus and Obama. The company said Fox rejected its ad. Fox didn't comment.

The Fixed Point Foundation, a group that promotes Christianity in the public square, told CNN that Fox rejected its proposed Super Bowl ad last June.

In the ad, people watching a football game spy the phrase John 3:16 - a New Testament verse popular among evangelical Christians – on a player's eye black. A man in the ad says he's going to look it up, with the ad directing viewers to lookup316.com.

Fixed Point Executive Director Larry Taunton said Fox told him his commercial was rejected because it contained "religious doctrine," though he said the ad avoided featuring the actual words of the verse.

More here-

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/07/the-super-bowls-faithy-moments/

FAITH STILL STRONG DESPITE QUAKE, SAYS HAITIAN BISHOP

From Jamaica-

THE leader of Haiti's Anglican Church has said that the January 12 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people, left millions homeless, and destroyed much of Port-au-Prince has not shaken the faith of his flock.

The Rt Rev Jean Zache-Duracin was giving the leadership of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica an update on the current conditions in his country, following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that triggered an outpouring of international assistance to Haiti.

"The earthquake has not destroyed our faith in the future," said Bishop Duracin in a letter to the Rt Rev Dr Alfred Reid, Lord Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

"The earthquake of January 12 was our baptism, now is our new creation," said Bishop Duracin. "We pray to all work together and we ask that you give us the time we need, first to care for our people, then to rebuild the Kingdom."

He said that "millions of Haitians still have nowhere to live. Many are sleeping in the streets in tents and some still have not found any shelter at all. All the infrastructure of the country as well as the key institutions of our Diocese have been destroyed, especially in Port-au-Prince".

More here-

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Haitian-Bishop-gives-quake-update_7489557